Twists and Turns
by DawnOfEast
Summary: Harry and Hermione delve deeper into their so-called friendship. They soon discover its all a bunch of Twists and Turns. Chapter Twenty Four is up and ready.
1. Homecoming

Twist and Turn

By QP

I don't own the Harry Potter characters. Enjoy! By the way, the POV's are alternating between Harry and Hermione. That's just my style. . .

Smog.  
  
Since the beginning of the year, I've had to get used to flying. There was a procedure to be followed and I quickly adapted. Try to pack as little as you can, so that you can store it all on the overhead compartment and thereby avoid two things: the airline losing your luggage or having to wait for it at the carousel forever. It seemed that no matter what time you checked in at the counter, whether you came early or late, your luggage was always the last to be unloaded off the plane. Eat nothing on the plane, unless you're on first class, and even so, order the vegetarian meal. The pasta, the beef, the noodles they offered were no more than cheap imitations of Pedigree or Purina, I thought. Sit at the front of the plane, where the oxygen still circulates and always, always ask for an aisle seat.  
  
The best part of the flight was the descent when you'd float down between the ephemeral white, puffy clouds and the city below would reveal itself. I like the ones by the water. A lake or a river, or the ocean provided a nice backdrop and transition between the baby blue of the sky and the stark landscape below. It comes no where near a broomstick experience, but I didn't think a broomstick would've made it across the Atlantic Ocean. I wanted time away from all the madness, and a Portkey would've just brought the madness to me quicker. The airplane was my sanctuary.

I was returning from a short trip to the United States. It was off-season in Quidditch, and everyone told me I needed a break from everything. So I went for two weeks, two weeks of the exact same thing. Americans were just as rabid as the British. They were after me for photo shoots, autographs, and interviews. Because not only was I a top Seeker for the Wasps, but I was the bloody Boy Who Lived. The Damn Boy Who Won't Die, as Lord Voldemort liked to think of it. 

In my last year at Hogwarts, Voldemort and his followers were more powerful than they were 17 years before. But the Order of the Phoenix had gotten stronger too, with the addition of my classmates. The age rule was lifted when they saw that practically all Slytherins had been inducted as Death Eaters. The battle that ensued was most likely the greatest battle ever fought in Europe, but the Light side won. At least for now. I defeated Voldemort almost the same way as I did when I was a baby, not without the help and loss of some people I love. Fortunately, my best friends still lived. Ron and Hermione are still by my side. Voldemort was weakened, not dead, and hiding in the shadows just waiting to rise up again. But for now I was everyone's hero.

In London., the plane descends below the clouds, as I've come to expect, but then there's smog. Ugly, brownish, thick.

I had called her earlier, and told her I'd take a muggle taxi.

"You have lots of luggage."  
  
"The cab has a trunk."  
  
"I got a car last week, when you were still home. Well, not home anymore, but you know." Yeah. I do. Smog is home now.  
  
"If you want to drive out here and get stuck in traffic..."  
  
"I do."

The plane touches down and muggles around me clap, happy to be alive, happy to have survived a foray into the land without Magic. I think of her waiting at the gate. I wonder how long it will take her to ask about a dog again, "To keep Crookshanks company." And I wonder if she knows I've already decided to say yes, I just haven't told her so.  
  
Everyone needs a lifeline. I have a roommate.

The airport is busy, but not teeming with people. It's midday Tuesday, and I move past the arrival gates and scan the crowds. She comes up behind me and sneaks her right arm around my waist so that she turns me around and pulls me into a tight hug. It's old and comfortable.  
  
"I missed you." She says, as if I couldn't have gathered from her reaction.  
  
"I missed you too." I smile at her, then take a closer look. "Is the house messy already?"  
  
She laughs at the absolute ridiculousness at the thought. If Hermione lives there, you know that house will be spotless. Before I know what's happening, she makes a wild grab for my backpack and suitcase. I pull them away.  
  
"What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "It's muggle tradition. You come home, I help you with your bags."  
  
"Walk beside me."  
  
"At least give me the backpack, you're overloaded."  
  
"Let me be manly for once."  
  
"It's a pink and purple backpack." She points out and laughs. Lucky for me, she rolls her eyes and walks beside me.

On the way to the parking lot, I'm spotted by a couple of girls. They're close to our age. They're off to a vacation and conveniently have a camera ready. Hermione volunteers to take a picture of the three of us, thinking it's faster than asking a stranger. One of them, with a perky name like Jessica or Lindsay asks me for a kiss on the cheek and I blush slightly, but oblige. She captures it all on film. I sympathize with her. Hermione's life with The Boy Who Lived, Part One.

I load my bags into the back of the shiny silver car. I look questioningly at her.

"It's a Lexus" she shrugged. "My mother bought it for herself, but realized she just looked too old driving it, so she gave it to me."

"Well I can't drive this. It's too girly." I joked. "Ron drives a Hummer. Now that's a car."

Ron was still in America, evidently enjoying Las Vegas.

"Well, Ron is compensating." She laughed.

  
"You calling my best friend womanly, Granger?" I growl at her. She laughs. 

"Nice to know your sense of humor wasn't left in America." 

Soon we are on the crowded streets of London, heading for the house we bought together a little past Diagon Alley. Together. As strictly platonic room mates, and nothing more. The car was silent for a while.

"I like your hair." I broke the silence. 

"It's exactly the same as you left."

"Well it's pretty. You're pretty." I grin.

"Why thank you, Mr. Potter." She laughs off my flirting. She always does that. 

"I painted your room, by the way. Remember the color we chose?" 

"That disgusting green color, You chose that!"

"Well your choice was neon orange."

"That would've gotten me up in the morning!" I pointed out.

"And would've driven Crookshanks insane." She said. 

"Well, if you just painted it today, I can't sleep in there. I'll have to sleep in your room." I grinned.

"Sorry, we're wizards, you dolt. I dried it in 5 seconds. But our couch pulls out anyway."

"Darn."

"Oh! And I met our new neighbor. She's about our age. A with that goes to a Muggle University. She seems to have a thing for you." She winked.

"Wonderful." I moaned.

"Her boyfriend likes you too." She laughed.

It was good to be home, smog and all.

This morning when I woke up, I had every intention of cleaning up my already messy room. My bags and clothes were strewn all over the place. I got up early, took a shower and actually hung the towel on the bar instead of dropping it carelessly on the floor. I got dressed and went downstairs to make myself something to eat. I picked up the newspaper and went out onto the deck. And then our neighbor leaned over the fence.  
  
"Hi there!"  
  
She was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a bright pink bikini top and my plans for the morning were shot to hell. She forced me to talk to her for two hours straight. The word "talk" being used loosely. I mostly just nodded, but she didn't seem to mind.  
  
So now as the girl, Melissa, finally says she has to go, I'm thinking about how Hermione will go nuts when she finds all my things thrown about. She had left really early for work, Head Researcher at St. Mungo's. I had spent five hours awake in this house and alerady the kitchen was in shambles. And the bathroom... oh Gods, the bathroom.  
  
POP!

I hear her apparate on our front steps, carrying a bag of groceries. We've made it so that no one could Apparate inside our house. I rush out and tell her to take things out of the car while I bring everything inside, hoping she doesn't insist on using a Levitating Charm. She raises an eyebrow and does so. Every two minutes I spend in the house dropping the groceries on the table, I try to put something away.

I return to her breathless for another armload of groceries.

"You trashed that house, didn't you." She said knowingly.

I looked down sheepishly. She rolled her eyes.

"Purgio!"

I looked in the house. Spotless. 

"Harry, you're going to have to get used to using magic again. It must be having stayed at Muggle hotels for so long." She said.

She set things up in the fridge while I watched her. My platonic friend. Then she went up to her room. Then she came out, looking confused. 

"Why is my bed all messed up?"

I thought for a moment, then remembered. "Oh. Um, this morning I started getting uncomfortable because my stuff was all over my bed and I didn't think about moving it so I. . ."

  
"You didn't sleep in my bed! Harry!"  
  
I wink at her and she punches me lightly in the arm.  
  
"I'm going to get you back for that."  
  
"Do you promise?"  
  
She rolls her eyes at me and proceeds to make up her bed.  
  
"Let me do that," I offer and she smirks at me.  
  
"I've got it. Go fix up the kitchen. I'm starving."

When she comes back downstairs, the kitchen isn't spotless any more, but it is presentable.  
  
"What are you making for lunch?" she asks, coming into the room.  
  
"Pizza? Chinese? What do you want?"  
  
"Honestly. I'm going to have to teach you how to cook, I see."  
  
"I can cook!" I say indignantly.  
  
"What, toast? Doesn't count."  
  
"It does!"  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
She inclines her head toward the deck.  
  
"Is that Melissa?" Hermione's eyes are dancing as she gives the once over to our neighbour. "She's cute, isn't she?"  
  
I shrug, "She's alright."  
  
"Your nose is just out of joint because she has a boyfriend."  
  
"Why would it be? I live with the most beautiful woman in London"  
  
"Flattery will get you nowhere."  
  
"That's what you think." I wink at her again and she makes a gagging face and then grins at me.  
  
"You're telling me you can resist my charms?"  
  
"What charms?"  
  
"You're lucky you're my best friend, Hermione."  
  
"If you say so."  
  
"If I really turned on the charm with you..."  
  
"Pizza."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Order the pizza. I'm going to go say hi to Melissa."


	2. Friendly Hijinks

I greet Melissa, and find her to be quite personable. She's a little perky for my taste, and overuses the word awesome, but apart from that, I like her.  
  
"I don't really follow a lot of the wizarding news, me being a squib and all," she tells me apologetically, "But I know Harry is like, world-famous and you're really accomplished yourself."  
  
What a relief it is to be living next to somebody normal, who doesn't seem particularly interested in our pursuits, and has no perception of what we're like. I'd half expected one of Harry's crazy fans to take up residence on the floor above and set up a charmed video recorder on their balcony.  
  
"So, have you guys been together since Hogwarts?"  
  
"Sorry?" I look around. "You mean Harry and I? We're not together."  
  
"Oh. I just thought, well he always talked about you and then he asked me to come and see the place when he had it painted and he was sleeping in the girly room."  
  
"Yeah, we had a discussion about that, believe me. We're friends, rooming for now."  
  
"That's awesome."  
  
There it is again. Awesome.  
  
Harry comes out through the open sliding doors and leans over the fence. He flashes her a quick grin and then blames the mess in the house on her.  
  
"I should have gone to the gym earlier, so he can clean up." She tells me.  
  
"Like you need to be more toned." He shoots back over the fence. I fight the urge to roll my eyes, but really this is classic Harry. I've gotten used to it and it's not that I mind it exactly, but I guess I didn't expect a friendly blonde with big boobs living next to us.  
  
We're disrupted when the pizza guy brings over lunch. I had stayed in this house for longer than Harry, but was too busy to do much furniture and silverware shopping. Which probably goes a long way to explain why our cupboards are filled with paper plates featuring every cartoon character Disney ever created. Oh and the Muppets too. Plus Snoopy and that damned bird of his. Woodstock, I think his name is. I settle on Linus and throw a couple of pizza slices on his face.  
  
"We need to go shopping. This isn't environmentally friendly." I mutter to myself.  
  
"How about tomorrow? I'll go with you."  
  
He tells me about the America and how he thinks they're all mad, driving around on the wrong side of the road. He's had lunch with Ron everyday, and the big redhead is still panicked about some Quidditch thing. And still a huge and shameless flirt. It's nice to catch up, even though he was owling me twice a day every day when I was home, asking about everything from what colours of towels I got and whether it was true that coloured toilet paper was bad for your ass. My mother read that letter and raised an eyebrow when I told him to get three ply white just in case.  
  
"Why would he ask you that?" She asked me later during my very short visit to her and my dad's house.  
  
"What? He just doesn't want his tushy eaten away by toilet paper dye."  
  
"You sound, I don't know, like an old married couple or something."  
  
"Mom, don't start."  
  
"He writes all the time. His head is forever in the fireplace to chat with you. He asked me if you liked Rice Krispies because he's planning on making you breakfast in the morning when you guys move in together. He wants to please you. I see how he looks at you."  
  
"The way he looks at anything that walks on two legs and has a second X chromosome." I rolled my eyes. After years of hanging out with Ron, Harry had developed a few of his "charming" traits.  
  
"Right."  
  
"Yeah, right. First, it was Cho. Then Parvati and then Lavender, who could forget Lavender? And the water girl from his last game? The woman selling peanuts down the street? Them too. The maid at the Hershaw's Magical Motel once who came in and spelled her adoration out in Spanish. I think that was in Spain, but I can't remember."  
  
"Why are you upset?"  
  
"I'm not upset, mom." I close my eyes and shake my head slightly and then promptly change the topic.  
  
He grabs the crust off my plate. "You don't want it?"  
  
I shake my head. I'm still wonky from that conversation. Since when were mother-daughter conversations that complicated? He eats my slice happily, then crumples up the paper plates and throws them in the garbage. I stay sitting at the table and he's wearing a sign of concern on his face.  
  
"You look tired."  
  
I shake my head. 

"I want to take a walk." He grins.  
  
I groan. "Already? Don't you have jet-lag or something?"  
  
"You going to come with me or will I have to drive that overpriced silver toy on chrome rims?"  
  
"You can, if you want."  
  
"Come with me?"  
  
"Okay." I sigh.  
  
"And put on your bathing suit. It's nice out and I want to go to that swimming hole I heard about on the way here."  
  
"No way."  
  
"You don't have to go all the way in, just a bit, that way it's fine if you get wet."  
  
"I know you, Harry. You'll drag me in and then a gigantic tidal wave will swallow me and pull me under and they'll find my body washed up in Cabo or something, half devoured by sharks, the rest of me regurgitated on shore."  
  
"That's revolting." He grins.  
  
"If I go, you won't let me get eaten by a great white?"  
  
"I won't let you get eaten by a great white shark or a bull shark or a tiger shark."  
  
"Well, if you say so..."  
  
I get up to go change and he follows me upstairs. I turn left to go to my room and he turns right to go to his. I'm digging through my suitcase when he's back at the door, already in his trunks.   
  
"Do you have a bikini?" He asks me.  
  
"Yes, why?"  
  
"See, that's why I got dressed so quickly."  
  
"Of course, I don't have to wear it."  
  
"But you will?" He asks hopefully.  
  
I gently shoo him out of the room and put it on anyway.

The truth is, I don't mind the swimming hole. As long as I don't have to get anywhere near the water. I like looking out at oceans and other big bodies of water, though, love the vast openness of the water, the limitless expanse of it. It doesn't feel insurmountable to me; it feels like opportunity. But damn, this was a swimming hole.   
  
I offer to let Harry drive to the beach, but he declines, good-naturedly joking that if he crashed my car, he'd be indebted to me for the rest of his life. I wink at him and tell him that we could come to some sort of alternative repayment agreement. He smiles at me with his eyes as he always does and we carry on our tradition of shameless flirting.  
  
The swimming hole is fairly deserted and I'm grateful for it. I park on the grass and pull off the t-shirt I'm wearing over my bikini top and step out of my flip flops. He ogles me for a moment until I glance at him and I hurriedly look away and admire the scenery.  
  
"Come on," he says. "Hurry up."  
  
I follow behind him as he races down to the water. He stands at the edge and beckons me.  
  
"Are you just going to stand up there and watch me?"  
  
"The view isn't so bad," I tease him.  
  
"Oh, come on. Don't make me come drag your scrawny white butt down here."  
  
I shake my head vehemently and poison him with my glare  
  
"Look, you don't have to dive in," he promises. 

"No thanks. Just go get those gigantic elephant feet of yours wet so we can go home." I say.  
  
"You know..."  
  
"Oh, don't even!" I laugh. "Like I haven't heard it a million times before."  
  
"Because it's true."  
  
She looks me over, "Sure it is."  
  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" I wink at her.  
  
"I'm sure Lavender would fill me in."  
  
"Hey!" he shakes his head. "If you're not down here by the time I count to three..."  
  
"What will you do to me?" I tease.  
  
"Miss Granger! Such thoughts!" Harry clutches his well-formed chest in mock horror.  
  
I cross my arms and pretend to glare at him.   
  
"I'm not afraid of you."  
  
"One."  
  
"No."  
  
"Two..."  
  
"You'll have to come and get me."  
  
"Two and a half."  
  
"Now you just sound like my mother."  
  
"Hermione!"   
  
"Harry!" I mimic. "You know I hate the water."  
  
"Too bad. Two and three quarters."  
  
"If I drown, you'll feel guilty for the rest of your life."  
  
"Not likely. Three." He charges up the sand after me and I take off down the bank with him in pursuit. He catches up to me and grabs my arm, and flips me onto his broad shoulders and carries me to the water.  
  
"You're going to get wet,Hermione. You can't avoid water and swimming forever."  
  
"Harrrrrrryyy! No!"  
  
"Please?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
He grins up at me, "Because I don't want to play by myself."  
  
I raise an eyebrow. "Well, when you put it that way..."

  
I stand at the very edge of the water while Harry takes a few paces further out.  
  
"It's warm!" he calls, encouraging me to come out further.  
  
I shake my head. "This is as much as you're getting out of me."  
  
"Chicken!"  
  
"I am not!" I say indignantly.  
  
"Then come closer," he says, lowering himself into the water. When he rises, his chest comes up shiny and smooth, like glass. I swallow hard.  
  
"You only said I had to get my feet wet."  
  
"I lied." he moves back toward me.  
  
"No, Harry."  
  
"Yes, Herms." he laughs at that damn nickname Grawp cursed me with and when he reaches my side, he grabs my arm and pulls me forward. I lose my balance and fall forward into the lake, which sends Harry into peals of laughter.  
  
"Harry!" I sputter, getting back to my feet.  
  
"Oh, don't be such a baby," he chides me. "It's just water."  
  
"Which I hate."  
  
"You take baths don't you?" he asks, rolling his eyes for good measure.  
  
"Yeah, but that's different."  
  
"How?"  
  
"The bathtub is just a little smaller and there aren't ... creatures... in it."  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
"You're ridiculous. In a very intelligent and studious way."  
  
"Thank you." I move back towards the car and he reluctantly follows me.  
  
"Can we go?" I ask, almost whining.  
  
He sighs, "Yeah, fine."  
  
"I can't believe you did that" I shake my head.  
  
"I can't believe you're whining about it."  
  
I sulk for a moment and then realize that I'm soaking wet.  
  
Harry walks back over to where we dropped our things in the grass and roots through his bag. He hands me a towel.  
  
"Here, hold this up."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"So I can change."  
  
"Here?!" I ask incredulously.  
  
He shrugs, "Where else?"  
  
"Home, maybe? Somewhere there is some privacy?" I shake my head incredulously at the habits he's acquired traveling with a pack of Quidditch-playing men for so long.  
  
He laughs at me. "It's not a big deal, Hermione. Look, we can't get the interior of your new car wet, can we?"  
  
"I don't mind, really" I tell him.  
  
He grins at me, "Come on, Herms. Be a friend. I'll do the same for you."  
  
I sigh and hold up the towel, making completely sure that I won't see anything. For my sake. 

"You can't – " he starts, suddenly nervous.

  
"I'm not looking." I shake my head.  
  
Obviously, he'd never gotten dressed and undressed within the confines of a beach towel because he is slow getting the trunks off. I guess all his macho bravado about changing on the beach was just talk. I stifled a giggle. His height doesn't help him either and I think the trunks must have gotten tangled up around his ankles, because he reaches down to get them off, but loses balance and falls into me, taking me aback enough that I momentarily let one corner of the towel go.  
  
Now, I'm not trying to look. I don't even want to look. He's yelping and I'm frantically grabbing at the terrycloth with my left hand, but there it is. His jeans come on in no time at all and when he stands up, I know he knows. It's the mortified look on his face that tells me so.  
  
It's not that I'm not embarrassed - I am, but I rationalize he was openly ogling my cleavage earlier, so we're even. Not really and not exactly, but it's as good as it's going to get.  
  
"You said you wouldn't drop it!" He shoots at me, red faced.  
  
"I didn't drop it, you fell on me." I try to explain, but he's decided to pin this one on me.  
  
"And?"  
  
"And what?"  
  
"You know..."  
  
I pick up my beach bag and stuff both our bathing suits in it, then shake the towels out to get rid of as much of the sand as possible.  
  
"You've seen one, you've seen them all." I try to be flippant, then thank God for the tan I picked up back home, it's nicely covering up the blush in my cheeks.  
  
We get to the car and he sits down first. "I'm so embarrassed." He moans.  
  
"Harry, why? You've been with girls before, you mean to tell me none of them ever walked in the bathroom when you were in there?"  
  
"No! They didn't."  
  
"Oh, well it was a matter of time."  
  
"Herms, the water was very cold. I'm just saying."  
  
"Oh my God, I can't believe we're having this discussion. You're fine, you look fine, long and lean, whatever, let's drop it and go have dinner."  
  
I've piqued his interest and I back out into the main road.  
  
"So, the long part is good, but I have to ask-"  
  
"No, you don't." I laugh and he eventually joins in, so I figure once again, amends have been made in the way we've grown to know them.


	3. Innocent Questions

Hermione is very nonchalant about the whole episode. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or irritated by that. She saw me! I'm not as innocent as I've claimed to my "fans", but at the same time, it does bother me that she got a good look and is laughing it off.  
  
It shouldn't bother me.  
  
But it does.  
  
We go out for dinner to some seafood restaurant and I order fish and chips while Hermione settles on more exotic fare. She wants to eat outside on the patio but I lodge a vehement protest and she agrees to eat indoor after chiding me.  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's beautiful outside."  
  
"Yeah, well... I don't like having flies parade through my dinner, thank you."  
  
"Oh, and sitting in the restaurant is going to prevent that?" she ribs me.  
  
I sigh, "Hermione, please? I've had a hard enough day."  
  
She laughs at me.  
  
"You're still on about that?"  
  
"It was humiliating."  
  
"Why? I'm not some innocent little girl, Harry. It's nothing I haven't seen before."  
  
"Yeah, but it wasn't mine!"  
  
"Why are you making such a big deal out of this, Harry? I'd have forgotten it by now if you didn't keep bringing it up."  
  
"Thanks," I stick my tongue out at her and she shakes her head.  
  
"Oh, what... is your pride hurt? Because I'm not throwing underwear at you?" she teases me. "Or maybe I should be like all these girls sitting over at that table behind us who keep looking at you and giggling?"  
  
I try not to turn and she looks amused by my effort at restraint.  
  
"Maybe you need some ego stroking?" she muses and proceeds to wave the girls over.  
  
They approach in a clump, giggling so profusely that it takes a few minutes before one of them gathers up the nerve to speak.  
  
"Hi, I'm Jessica."  
  
I give her my patented Harry Potter star smile. "Hi there, Jessica."  
  
"I'm a really big fan of yours," the girl beside her gushes and then glances quickly at Hermione, "And yours too, Hermione."  
  
"Thank you," she says graciously. She's no famous Quidditch star, but after all we and Ron have been through all three of us have become pretty well known. But she is definitely a star in her own right. The editor of the magazine that is casting its shadow over the Daily Prophet. Yes, she is a star all right.  
  
"You two look really cute together," another girl, this one a brunette, tells us.  
  
"Well, thank you," I drawl and Hermione shoots me a look.  
  
"I think it's so awesome that you're living together," the first girl informs us and Hermione smiles at her.  
  
"It's nice to have a friend around," she replies.  
  
"Yeah, but you're more than friends, right?" she asks. "I mean, I was reading the news like, all summer, and did you know that there are like whole fan clubs and groups devoted to you? You two are so cute. You even have like, a total shipper following."  
  
"Ah yes," Hermione chuckles. "The 'Harry/Hermione Ship'."  
  
"Yes!" Jessica's friend grins. "There's lots of us who just love you so much. You're so adorable together. You can tell you are meant to be together."  
  
I fight the urge to laugh and instead, nod as if completely engrossed in this whole scenario.  
  
"We're friends," Hermione insists, but they ignore her.  
  
"Can we get a picture with you?" yet another girl asks.  
  
"Sure," he smiles. "And then my friend Kim and I are going to have dinner, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, sure!" Jessica smiles and turns to one of her friends. "They look even better together in person, don't they?"  
  
"Really, girls," I laugh. "Herms and I are just the best of friends, that's all."  
  
"If you say so," one of them giggles.  
  
I glance over at Hermione, who looks distinctly uncomfortable by the whole encounter. Once the picture has been taken and the girls reluctantly return to their table, I lean across ours and offer her an embarrassed smile.  
  
"Sorry about that."  
  
"It's okay, I guess I'm going to have to get used to it."  
  
"The fans or the speculation about our arrangement?"  
  
"Both, probably," she laughs.  
  
"Most of them are harmless," I grin and she shakes her head.  
  
"Except for the ones who have likened me to a She-Devil for 'sacrificing your future'."  
  
"Hey, I'm willing to be sacrificed on your altar anytime," I wink at her. "Anyway, I doubt anyone is still thinking about the foul Rita Skeeter. Didn't she join a muggle strip club or something?"  
  
"Harry, I'm eating," she groans.  
  
***

"Hi Mom." I say into the cell phone, breathless. My mother made me get one, since she's still uncomfortable with the wizarding communication methods.  
  
"Are you on your way out?"  
  
"No, just got home, you caught me climbing the stairs."  
  
I lift my feet up in the air, juggling the cell phone between my ear and shoulder, getting my sandals off at the same time.  
  
"How was the meeting?"  
  
"Good. It wasn't as boring as I thought, but then again, it was only the first of many. I liked it, liked meeting the people I'll be working with."  
  
"It sounds exciting. Did they give you free food?"  
  
"Actually, yeah." I laugh. "How did you know?"  
  
"On the TV shows, they always have free food at these sorts of things. Some miniature versions of real food. How is Harry?"  
  
"Not home, but he's alright. Messy as hell and I'm not a neat freak either."  
  
He's left his cereal bowl on the counter again. I don't understand why it's so hard to move it a few inches to the left and deposit it in the sink. And rinse the thing too. I sigh and mutter the _Purgio_. The bowl rids itself of dried m ilk and neatly deposits itself in the cupboard.  
  
"Mrs. Weasley called me today." My mother said matter-of-factly.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"She wanted to know if I knew what was going on."  
  
Huh? "Going on where?"  
  
"With you two."  
  
Oh. That. A year after Hogwarts, Harry finally built up the courage to call Mrs. Weasley "mother". Mrs. Weasley was practically ecstatic. Since then Mrs. Weasley has been very protective of Harry, just as much as her own children. I had the feeling that she wanted me to call her "mother" too, but unlike Harry I had a mother. Though I do love Mrs. Weasley dearly. 

"Mom, this is really getting old. Tell her I think likes our neighbour. She's actually quite a lovely girl, so it's no great loss."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"I've got to run out to the grocery store before it closes. Can I call you back tomorrow?"  
  
She knows I'm the one doing most of the shopping, so it's a logical, even believable excuse. The truth is, I'm tired of repeating myself and it's all falling on deaf ears anyway. Maybe I should have told her I've seen him in the buff. Fan the rumor flames a bit.   
  
At the end of the day, I understand the speculation. Even Mrs. Weasley told Harry to knock it off, kissing me in front of the reporters just to rile them up. And that's what he said we were doing and for some reason, I've always found him to be very convincing. Our shameless flirting ran rampant through the press like small pox.  
  
I had tried to hold him off. Make him stop trying to make the reporters piss their pants. 

  
"You don't kiss somebody unless you mean it, Harry. Isn't that what Molly's always told you?"  
  
He never did answer me that night.  
  
No sooner do I change into my casual clothes, and he walks through the door, calling my name happily. I find him at the bottom of the stairs, holding a pretty big box. He's unwrapping it and throws styrofoam packing bits all over the floor, then unrolls something brown covered in bubblewrap.  
  
"What is that?"  
  
"A cuckoo clock!" He declares triumphantly.  
  
"Does a bird come out and sing?"  
  
"Obviously. Isn't it cool?" He pushes a button and an insanely colorful bird zooms out and starts singing "Love is in the Air". A trail of sparkling fairy dust follows in its wake. After about 20 seconds it flies back into the clock. I fail to suppress a girlish giggle.  
  
It's actually tacky as hell, but I like it. There's something charming about the wooden acorns that hang down on the long chains. It's actually rather intricately carved, but the paint job around the door where the bird comes out sports a questionable choice of colours.  
  
"How much was it?"  
  
"One hundred galleons. You like it?"  
  
"I do." I shake my head in disbelief.  
  
"I knew you would. That's why I got it. It was cute enough that you'd want to keep it, but tacky enough you'd still laugh."  
  
Some days, I really love living with him.

* * *

Our schedules pretty much dictate that we don't spend a lot of time in each other's company over the next few weeks and we settle into a pattern of leaving notes stuck to the refrigerator for each other. They consist mainly of:  
  
"Harry, please don't leave wet towels on the floor."  
  
"Harry, can you please clean the bathtub after you use it?"  
  
"Harry, clean the bathroom!"  
  
"Harry, if that bathroom isn't clean by the time I get home..."  
  
and:  
  
"Hermy, would you mind picking up some orange juice at the store for me?"  
  
"Hermy, there's no bread left."  
  
"Hermy, when are you going for groceries?"  
  
"Hermy! I'm starving!"  
  
The first weekend that we have off together, Hermione insists that we spend time cleaning the house. I beg off, telling her that I'm really too weak to clean because I haven't been eating properly and she threatens to make me cook for myself, which pretty much ends that argument.  
  
By the time we have the place looking somewhat presentable, the day is shot and I suggest that we get ourselves cleaned up and leave the house before it returns to it's natural state and she agrees.  
  
When we're both ready, she asks me if I have any suggestions about what we should do for the evening and I grin at her and raise my eyebrow suggestively.  
  
"God, you are such a flirt!" she laughs.  
  
"I am not."  
  
"Oh, please," she laughs. "You flirt with everything in a skirt... and even some things that aren't."  
  
"What? You've got to be kidding me."  
  
"You know that it's true. I BET you that you can't go this whole evening without hitting on someone."  
  
"I can too."  
  
"Me included," she says, smirking.  
  
"That's easy," I tell her and instantly want to backtrack. "I mean, not that you aren't attractive or that I don't want to hit on you. I mean..."  
  
She laughs.  
  
"Flirting just comes naturally to you," she shrugs. "Like breathing does for everyone else."  
  
"I kind of resent that."  
  
"Why? It's true. Every woman in this neighborhood knows your name. I've lived here just as long as you have and nobody knows mine."  
  
"That's not true."  
  
"They know me as the woman who lives with you."  
  
"Come on."  
  
"No, I'm serious, Harry. Except they assume that I'm your girlfriend."  
  
"What's wrong with that?"  
  
She shakes her head.

  
I follow Hermione out to the car, which I still think is too silvery and I would much rather prefer my Firbolt, wondering if there is any truth in what she's saying and also, wondering if she's offended when people think that she's my girlfriend. It's not like her to get offended over something so ludicrous.  
  
Hermione and I?  
  
She's my friend, and there are some lines that you don't cross. Sure, I flirt with her, but it doesn't mean anything.  
  
Oh God, I am shameless.  
  
The question is, why am I flirting with her? Do I flirt so much that I don't even notice when I'm doing it or who is on the other side of it?  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
I shake my head. Across the street, I catch a glimpse of our neighbors and I wonder for a moment how they perceive our living arrangement.  
  
I shake my head, willing myself to snap out of it and tell myself that I'm being irrational; nobody really cares what our circumstances are.  
  
Except they assume she's my girlfriend.  
  
Why wouldn't they? My own mother, Mrs. Weasley, thought so; she warned me about moving in with Hermione. She hinted that I might not understand what I was getting into, and I laughed it off because Hermione and I had always had an understanding.  
  
The only thing I understand right now is that I haven't said anything in almost five minutes and Hermione is sitting beside me, staring at me in confusion.

* * *

  
We talk about work a little bit until I tell him I have to deal with work at work, no need to mar a perfectly beautiful Saturday night too. The waitress shows up with our bill and is pretty obvious in her efforts to smile and bat her eyelashes at Harry. He's polite, and refrains at first, but ends up joining her in a laugh when she makes some joke about his crazy hair and I know I've won my bet.  
  
I competed with him for months and we'd compete at everything later. Silly things and winning arguments about politics. I loved winning and the fact he hated losing made it all the more appealing. I won a bet tonight and I feel nothing.  
  
What really gets to me is that he flashes his smile at me as we walk out and holds my hand out on the street in the still warm fall night and I find myself back where I've started. But he does it with every girl.  
  
We all get the smile, the touchiness, the friendliness. He never told me he'd meant it, even when I asked. I don't know that I want more, but I can't help thinking maybe I should be different.

  
* * *

  
He goes to grab a shower and I elect to sit on the deck. With my thoughts, none of which make any sense. A few minutes later, I can hear him walking around the living room, looking for me, and then I hear the glass sliding doors open.  
  
"Hey."  
  
I turn my head and look up at him with a slight smile.  
  
"You lose. Grocery shopping duty for a week. Winner gets to pick the reward."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The waitress, we had a bet."  
  
"I wasn't flirting with her. And it wouldn't count anyway."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I didn't mean it."  
  
"You're just trying to talk you way out of losing. I won fair and square."  
  
"No, there are two kinds of flirting. One is out of habit, because it's a learned response, the other is with intent, when you want something. I didn't want anything."  
  
I want to say something to him then, but I let it go. I must be stupid tonight, not to see where he's going with this.  
  
"The waitress and the two beach blond chicks across the street. They're just girls. It means nothing."  
  
"Okay, Harry, I get it. We'll call this bet a draw, I'll cut my losses."

Awkward silence.  
  
I'm suddenly tired and the night air has turned crisp, so I get up, ready to turn in for the evening.  
  
"I'm tired, I'll sleep in." I tell him.  
  
"What?" He's confused. "No, no, wait, I don't know where to put you. What category. Are you 'just a girl'?"  
  
"Harry, it's late." And he moves in my way.  
  
"Hermy, it's only midnight. It's not so late, you can afford 5 minutes."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"We flirt, I kissed you before, a few times. We live together. My mother thinks I'm sleeping in your bed. You're not dating anyone and neither am I. I stared at you at the beach and you gave that waitress the evil eye and now I'm definitely rambing, but why aren't we together?"  
  
I just stare at him.  
  
"It's just a question, I don't mean anything by it, maybe I'm curious." He tries to deflect when he feels he's given up too much.  
  
Of course, it doesn't help I'm still staring. "You apparently don't mean a lot of things." I don't know where that came from and neither does he, as hurt transfixes his face.  
  
"That's not an answer, though."


	4. Going in Circles

A/N: I just wanted to thank those who reviewed. Also if you have any questions feel free to ask. Thanks!

"Isn't it?" she challenges me and attempts to move past me into the house. I reach out and grab her hand, asking her to stay put.  
  
"No." I shake my head and she looks past me into the darkness.  
  
"You don't mean this," she says finally, attempting to laugh.  
  
"Yes," I insist. "I do."  
  
"Why now, Harry? Why do you want to know now? Did you hit a dry spell or something?"  
  
"Come on, Hermione. Do you really think that badly of me?"  
  
"Why shouldn't I?" she asks. "Why should I not come to the conclusion that I'm just the flavour of the week?"  
  
"That's not fair."  
  
"Why are you asking?" she wants to know. "Is it because you're interested in me, or am I just a challenge because maybe I'm the one thing that you can't have?"  
  
"I just wanted to know..."  
  
"Why I'm not screaming your name like all those other girls? Why I don't hang on your every word like the reporters do? Why I have no interest in really playing house with you?"  
  
I blink. Have I gotten that much like...Ron?  
  
"I wouldn't have put it that way, but I guess so."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"You really don't want to hear the answer to your question." she sighs.  
  
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."  
  
"I can not do this with you." She pulls her hand away from mine and leaves me there.

  
* * *  
  
I'm almost grateful for our complicated schedules now. Hermione is still relatively new at her job, and I've been going to several Quidditch events on the off season. Since the rest of the team was still in America, I had to handle things on my own.  
  
Throughout the week, we manage to avoid each other and even the notes on the refrigerator stop. But it produces an awkward silence that seems to grow even though neither of us are in the same room together.  
On Friday night, I come home to an empty house and a note scrawled in her handwriting on the table:  
  
Harry,  
  
I'm getting together with the girls this weekend, so you'll have to fend for yourself. There are some frozen dinners for you. Use the heating charm, but don't hold them while you do it. You don't want to relive the whole butter-on-a-burn thing.  
  
I'll see you later.  
  
Hermione.  
  
No "Love Hermione". There is no number where she can be reached and no indication of exactly where she's gone to. I get the hint.  
  
Left to my own devices, I manage to make something somewhat edible for dinner and settle down in front of the television to eat. My mind wanders and the TV soon becomes white noise. We had gotten a TV, since we still thought it was strange how wizards lived without it.   
  
I want – no, I need – to finish that discussion we were having. She said that I wouldn't be happy with her answer but I'm less happy with a non-answer. At least with an answer, I'd know what I was dealing with.  
  
Something else she said is bothering me though and I finally push aside the pasta I made and get to my feet, feeling too antsy to sit here any longer.   
  
I pull on a light jacket and head outside, taking in the golden light that glances off of the other houses in the neighborhood as the sun bids it goodnight. I walk down the block, nodding when my name is called, offering a smile to the woman at the end of the street who made sure to introduce herself one afternoon before Hermione came home.  
  
She calls me over and invites me to come and have some tea with her in the backyard, but I decline her offer and continue to walk without purpose or direction. When I come to the end of the block, I turn back, even though I have no desire to go home to an empty house.  
  
My head feels fuzzy and I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and stare up at my house, our house, and think back on her words.  
  
Do I want her because I can't have her?  
  
Holly, a pretty redhead who lives a block over waves at me as she comes forward, walking her tiny, yappy little dog.  
  
"Hi there, Harry."  
  
"Hi Holly," I say politely, offering her a charming smile.  
  
"Angel thought she'd like to visit the neighbours," she tells me, looking down fondly at the white puffball.  
  
I smile in response.  
  
"She especially likes you," she tells me.  
  
"Oh, that's nice."  
  
"She has good taste," she tries again.  
  
"You're a good teacher," I wink at her and she giggles.  
  
"Angel would really love to take a rest," she says. "And I'm dying of thirst. Invite me in?"  
  
Who am I to say no?  
  
* * *

  
By the time Holly and Angel depart, we've made a date for tomorrow night and I've stopped worrying about Hermione. But as soon as the house is quiet again, I'm thrown back into my thoughts about the whole sorry situation.  
  
My encounter with Holly only leaves me more confused. It also leaves me annoyed when I realize that Hermione may have a point.  
  
I hate it when that happens.  
  
Still, I reason, I'm thinking about her, aren't I? I don't think Holly would have objected had I invited her to stay. But I didn't.  
  
Why the hell not?  
  
* * *  
  
Last weekend, when he asked me that question, if it had been any other girl, like half the ones living in our neighbourhood, they'd have jumped at the opportunity. They'd have heard the question and seen it as an opening. An in. And they'd have taken advantage of it and the evening would probably have ended differently and they wouldn't be getting their nails done with Lavender and Parvati all weekend rather than sitting at home with him.  
  
She asks me to braid her hair and I'm not that good at it, but I'm still better than her, and it's just for fun, late Saturday night, as she drinks some expensive Dominican rum and offers a shot to me every once in a while.  
  
"Where's Parvati?" I only notice hours later that she's not around.  
  
"Out with her cousin, the one her parents sent to chaperone her on this trip, make sure I'm not getting her drunk. Maybe she's over at your place, making one last ditch effort to nab Harry."  
  
No, that would be Melissa. Or the one with the white poodle, I don't even know her name. I hate these grim little thoughts.  
  
"So, how is it, living with him?"  
  
"Good, we're getting along." Mostly, I think. No need to elaborate.  
  
"Is he still all over you like white on rice?" She laughs and drinks some more.   
  
"Not really. It's weird. Did you think we were going to get together when we moved in?"  
  
"Honestly?"  
  
"No, I want you to tell a flaming lie." I said sarcastically.  
  
"Yeah." She said simply.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because everybody has their breaking point."  
  
"It's not like I was waiting for months to jump his bones. God, why does everybody think that? I wasn't pining." I'm frustrated now. The cornrow I'm working on is as straight as the leaning tower of Pisa.  
  
"Even the worst cheater in the world comes home to something. I'm not saying Harry's like that. He's a flirt, but he'd come back to the same person eventually, all the time. He'd have dinner with them and talk late at night and give them all the stuff that got thrown on the first page of Witch Weekly. Then he comes home to you. It was always you, so is it that farfetched?"  
  
I sigh. It isn't and it is.

* * *

I take the long way home on Sunday afternoon. My car. The wireless is too loud and I turn it off and purposely head on to the freeway I know will be most jammed. I'm looking for a trap, a delay.  
  
In many ways, it would have been easier if he'd asked me out that night. I don't know that I would have said yes, and I don't even know if I want to look across the table at him and see Harry the man, rather than Harry the friend. But at least I'd have known his position. Instead, he asks why we're not together as if I was the one who decided, as if I control the weather and the definition of who "we" are.  
  
Part of me is also angry at him for creating the awkward situation we're in. I probably should have stuck around and finished the discussion, but I don't like dealing with the unknown, and when he said it was just a question, he was just curious, I knew I'd walk away.  
  
Eventually, the highway frees up and I'm dawdling up the driveway as I see poodle lady leaving the apartment. Without the poodle. She flashes a smile at me and walks down the street.  
  
I drop my bags by the door and find him in the kitchen.  
  
"I saw Heather leaving." I tell him as I walk around the kitchen looking for some juice.  
  
"Holly."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"We went out to eat."  
  
"That's nice." I say absentmindedly and then go back into the hallway to busy myself with something. Anything.

  
"Parvati says for you to write her, she got a new owl." I say a little too brightly. So much for easing the tension.  
  
"I didn't really like Holly that much. Actually, I did, but she talks a lot and most of it revolves around shopping for shoes and how her dog can climb all her furniture."  
  
"And that's a good thing?"  
  
"Same thing I was thinking."  
  
I pick my bags up and motion up the stairs. "I have to unpack."  
  
"Hermione, why?"  
  
This time, I know what he's talking about. He is not asking about my unpacking. "Harry, why are you asking me? Like I hold some kind of key to the answer, like I know."  
  
"I know you know because you won't tell me."  
  
"Fine. A lot of reasons. A whole bunch of distinct, real reasons. There."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"I should name one?"  
  
"You should name all of them!"  
  
"What the hell for? What, you want a comprehensive list? An encyclopedic volume? I don't even know why you've brought it up in the first place. You went out with Heather or Holly or whatever her name is, so obviously you're not sitting here wanting for...anything." What an awkward sentence. That "anything" doesn't fit.  
  
"I'm not going out with her again. And yeah, sure, I want a list."  
  
I look at him incredulous. He's serious. 

* * *

I expect I'll get little sleep that night, so I walk over to my desk and snatch up a bit of parchment. I sit in my room for a long time, then I ready my fine point blue quill and start scratching away.

  
The sheet fills up and I consider numbering my apparent grievances. But that might make it seem like a prioritized list, like # 3 is more valid than # 5, so I give up on that idea.  
  
He's long asleep and I cast an adhesive charm to the parchment and stick the sheet on his door.  
  
He wanted a list, well now he's got one.


	5. The List

"What is this?" I thrust the paper in front of her eyes as she sits at the kitchen table, reading a layout for her magazine and eating a bowl of cereal.  
  
She doesn't look at it.  
  
"You said you wanted a list," she shrugs.  
  
"Why is it so long?" I narrow my eyes at her.  
  
"Have you read it?"  
  
"That doesn't answer my question."  
  
"Read it."  
  
"Number one: We're friends. So?"  
  
"So, there are some lines you don't cross."  
  
"Maybe it isn't a line, maybe it's just a starting point."  
  
She doesn't answer.  
  
"Number two: you think of me as a sister. I can definitely assure you that's not true."  
  
"Great."  
  
"Oh, it is."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"Three: I'm not your type. What's my type, Hermione?"  
  
"Ask Holly. Or Melissa. Parvati. Or one of the other ladies on our street."  
  
"Three A. There's subpoints? Subpoints?? Three A: I'm not blonde and cute. Again, I can argue that. Okay, maybe not the blonde part."  
  
"I'm not your type of 'hot'. Bushy hair, freckles, the works."  
  
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" I stare at her.  
  
"It matters, Harry. It shouldn't, but it does."  
  
"Not to me."  
  
"Wait until your screaming fans hear. You can hit ground bottom with one tiny slip-up."  
  
"You know I don't care about that."  
  
"We'll see. Finish the list."  
  
I run my finger down the page to number four.  
  
"You're not my type. Why not?" I demand.  
  
She shrugs, "You just aren't."  
  
"Well, what's your type? You don't like the way I look?"  
  
She closes her eyes. "You're just not my type."  
  
"You can change your mind."  
  
She sighs and gets up from the table to put her bowl in the sink. As she runs water into the dish, I come up behind her and continue reading the list aloud.  
  
"You are a shameless flirt. We've been over this one, Hermione. You know it doesn't mean anything."  
  
"Good to know. You've flirted with me. Quite a bit, as I recall."  
  
"That's different!" I protest. "And you flirted back to me!"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"It is."  
  
She shakes her head and folds the layout and drops it in the trash.  
  
"Five. You only want me because everyone else thinks that we should be together. Are you serious?"  
  
"It's my list, Harry."  
  
"Six. If that's not the reason, then you only want me because you can't have me. Oh, really?"  
  
She sighs and shakes her head yet again.  
  
"I have to get going. I'm supposed to meet with my junior editors."  
  
"Wait, I want to finish this."  
  
"Fine, finish."  
  
"You're a slob, you can't cook and you are a total chicken when it comes to trying anything new?! Scared to try new things?? Are you serious."

"You've stuck with Quidditch your whole life. You never even tried anything else. Not even your auror dreams."

Harry's jaw dropped. I felt a bit guilty for practically calling the bravest man on earth a lazy coward, but he seemed to still be in shock that I made an actual list.   
  
"All reasons why you're not my type." I continued.  
  
"Thanks for clarifying."  
  
"Harry, you wanted to know. So now you do."  
  
"But you're wrong."  
  
She shakes her head. "I don't think so."  
  
"I bet I can prove every single one of these points wrong."  
  
"Whatever."  
  
"Don't give me the brush off here, Hermione. I'm serious. I want to prove to you that you're wrong about me."  
  
"Harry, I didn't make this list for you to get all worked up over it. You said it was just a question and then you wanted to know why. So I told you. Let it go."  
  
I shake my head. "You really don't know me, do you?"  
  
She sighs. "I do, Harry. That's the point. We're friends. That's all."  
  
"What if I want more?"  
  
"To prove a point? I don't think so."  
  
"No, not to prove a point. Well, yeah. To prove a point. But to prove that point so that you'll look at me differently."  
  
"Why, Harry?"  
  
This time it's my turn to walk away.

* * *  
  
Now I'm upset with myself for making that list. I thought he'd read it in a rational manner, come to the conclusion all the points are quite valid and let it go. Unfortunately, now he sees it as some kind of a challenge, a quest and a holy grail and he won't let it go.  
  
It's ridiculous. It's like when a five year old tells their mother that the only food they want to eat is cotton candy and then even as they have bits of the pink and blue stuff throughout the day and get sick of it, they don't want to own up to a stomach ache, because they're trying to prove a point.  
  
And what's this about him not thinking of me as a sister? I need to stop walking around the house in short shorts and tank tops.  
  
I'm not a trophy to be won, I'm not a competition, I'm not up for auction or sale. He doesn't even want me, not really.   
  
It's not good enough.

* * *

The meeting is busy and eventful and steers my mind in a new direction. David, my assistant, is booking me on some signings and wants to clear the schedule so that it doesn't interfere with promotion time. I'm a little apprehensive about all the exposure, but it comes along with the territory and I've accepted it.  
  
Just as I'm about to head out for lunch, the fireplace in the common office snaps and Harry's head pops up.  
  
"Hey."   
  
"Hi, what's up?" I say cautiously.  
  
"Where do you keep the mop? The one for the floor."  
  
"There's another kind?" He doesn't answer. "In the storage closet, in the hallway, next to the bucket. Why do you never act like a wizard and use a cleaning spell?"  
  
"I used Floo, didn't I? Okay, thanks. I have to go in for an interview, but I'll be home for dinner, maybe late."  
  
"Sure."  
  
He disappears and I figure he's probably spilled something in the kitchen. He's done it a couple of times before, despite my constant pleas to put any open containers away from the edge of the counters.  
  
His birthday is coming up in a month. I need to get him something and I'm at a total loss. It's not like he needs anything, well, except a maid. There's an idea.  
  
I head on over to the book store for a couple of hours and it's an easy, fun session. I'm not sure how much we got done, but I hate working in a stressful environment, so I don't mind fooling around sometimes. Then I snap back into my perfectionist mode and we get down to business anyway.  
  
Since I'm done early, I maneuver my way through a gigantic supermarket and load up on all the groceries we're out of. Three aisles of pet food, 57 different yogurt flavours, 45 kinds of toilet paper, a pyramid of the shiniest Red Delicious apples gleaming with wax and people starving in Africa. It's hard not to think about, especially when you finally come into some money. When you're lower middle class, it's a matter of paying off your student loans before fixating on the third world. Now, I feel like that rich man looking at the camel get through the eye of the needle.  
  
To cement the fact I'm now a shameless consumer, I can barely carry all the bags. I bought him 4 kinds of disgusting, sugary cereal, because I know he loves it and I feel a little bit bad about calling him a slob and a chicken, even if both those things are pretty darn true. I got a cherry pie, again more for him than myself, and with that, obviously, I needed vanilla ice cream, so that in the end, I bought a whole lot of nothing.  
  
I have to make three apparitions trips from the store to the front door in order to unload all this stuff. Usually, he's good about bringing the groceries in, but he's out now, so I don't even bother ringing the bell. I get the door unlocked and stumble into the hallway. Hmmm, pine fresh.  
  
The bags quickly make it onto the ceramic floor and then I'm transporting them into the kitchen. I turn around to search through the purchases when I notice the floor is particularly shiny. I stand up and take the rest of the kitchen in.  
  
The counters are spotless. There is no clutter. The sink is as shiny and silver as the day they installed it. The tiled backsplash is clean of every tiny speck. The stove is sparkling. No dishes in the sink, none in the dishwasher either. The kitchen rags are hanging neatly, clean and ironed.  
  
I forget about the ice cream and walk through the rest of the house.  
  
I've never, ever seen a place this clean. Not even my mother's house the day before Christmas. The bathroom is stunning, and for the first time, I appreciate what a beautiful room it is when you can actually see the floor and the glass doors of the shower stall have been properly washed.  
  
I'm not really sure I've walked into the right house, but my room is still there. I peek into his and it's also spotless.  
  
I figure he must have hired a maid.

* * *

Damn that list.  
  
My hands are burning from all the cleaners I used to get the house spotless before I left for my meeting. My wand is practically smoking at the tip from all the cleaning charms. I decide that I'll have to suck it up though. Strike "You're a slob" from the list.  
  
I run over the list in my head again and again during my meeting so that most of what is discussed there goes over my head and I'm left feeling out of the loop as the suits debate some appearances that they want me to make.  
  
Finally, I'm released and as I apparate back to the house, I wonder what Hermione's reaction was when she walked through the door. At any rate, I'm going to find out momentarily what she thinks.  
  
"Hermione?" I call out as I open the door and glance around the living room.  
  
"Deck," she calls and I follow her voice. She's sitting in a lounge chair, reading a book and looks up at me.  
  
"How was your meeting?" she asks, nonchalantly.  
  
Okay... she's not even going to mention it? She had to have noticed! I spent most of the day scrubbing. My damn spells didn't work right. I can conjure a bloody Class 3 Immobilization Jinx, but I can't do a simple scrubbing spell.  
  
"Boring," I shrug.  
  
"Yeah, well, you have to pay for the maid somehow."  
  
"What maid?"  
  
She snorts. "Oh, right. This place just cleaned itself?"  
  
"I didn't hire anyone."  
  
"Sure, you didn't." She winks at me and returns to her book.  
  
I sigh, exasperated.  
  
"I did it, Hermione."  
  
"Whatever you say."  
  
"Look at these hands!" I thrust them forward for her inspection.  
  
"They look fine" she comments, not really looking.  
  
"They feel like sandpaper," I tell her. "Feel."  
  
I brush my hand across her cheek and she flinches.  
  
"Okay, you've made your point."  
  
Her skin is so, so soft.  
  
I flatten my palm against her cheek and leave it there for a moment until she pulls away.  
  
"So that's one."  
  
"One what?" she sighs, even though she knows full well.  
  
"One of your reasons why we're not together. That I was a slob. Except I just proved that it's not valid."  
  
"You cleaned the house once, Harry. To make a point. That hardly proves that you're not a slob."  
  
"But it proves that I don't have to be."  
  
"Harry, if you prove every point on that list wrong, it still doesn't change things with us."  
  
"That's crazy, Hermione. If I prove that you're wrong about me and the way that you feel about me, how does that not change things?"  
  
She looks up at the sky.  
  
"It doesn't change that we wouldn't work together."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"It doesn't" she repeats stubbornly.  
  
"Why are you afraid to let me try?"  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"I think you are. If you're so sure that nothing will change, what's the harm in letting me prove you wrong?"  
  
She gets to her feet.  
  
"Why can't we just stay the way that we are Harry?"  
  
"Everything changes," I say sagely.  
  
She bites her lip and sighs deeply.  
  
"What do you want from me?"  
  
I take out the list from the back of my jeans and smooth it out.  
  
"A better reason than this."

* * *

  
She thinks I can't cook so the next morning, I'm determined to strike that off the list as well. I get up far earlier than should be necessary and consult a pile of cookbooks, thinking that it shouldn't be that hard to make breakfast. No magic. Muggle-style, like when she was a little kid.  
  
If you can read, you can cook. Right?  
  
Wrong, as it turns out.  
  
After a lot of muttering curses under my breath, a disaster in the once-spotless kitchen and enough wasted food to feed a small army, I turn around at the sound of Hermione's laughter coming from the doorway.  
  
"Hey, out!" I tell her.  
  
"I couldn't help it," she laughs. "The Smoke Ward went off!"  
  
"It's not that bad," I grumble and survey the fruits of my labour. A stack of blackened toast, some runny eggs and limp bacon taunt me from the table.  
  
"So much for the list," she calls over her shoulder as she heads back upstairs to take a shower.  
  
"Give me half an hour!" I call after her and open the fridge to take out the rest of the eggs.

* * *

  
The eggs start to take on a recognizable form by the time I'm back downstairs. They're not as fluffy as they should be, but they're not runny or too dry either. He still hasn't conquered the bacon, which is fine, too greasy anyway for this early in the morning.  
  
I grab a couple of forks and plates and he hands me two pieces of perfect toast. Golden brown, buttered slightly, the sort you see in cooking magazines. Beside him, I see a pile of burnt pieces of toast, so apparently he went through an entire loaf of it before he produced these two models. He's buttering one of the charred slices, which I find silly considering he'd spent all that time in the kitchen, so I hand him one of the ones he gave me.  
  
"No, that one's for you."  
  
"Why would you want to eat burnt toast?"  
  
"I just want you to have the good ones. I only got two this morning, maybe tomorrow I'll have four."  
  
"You're not doing this again, are you?"  
  
"Yes." He says defiantly and bites into the blackened bread.  
  
I sigh. "For how long?"  
  
"As long as it takes for you to strike that nonsense off the list."  
  
"Harry..." I start to speak, but then don't know how to articulate myself. When he sees I've got nothing to say, he goes on.  
  
"What are you doing on Saturday?"  
  
"I thought we were going to Melissa's barbecue."  
  
"Damn. Okay."  
  
I think I might have just been saved from the awkwardness of him asking me if I'd like to do something that day and then both of us pretending it's just your average weekend in our household.  
  
I still need to take care of my hair and makeup and I excuse myself from the table. The instant I'm up, I hear him gathering up the dishes, one by one and depositing them in the sink. By the time I reach the top of the stairs, he's squirting liquid detergent on a dish rag and the water is running. I shake my head fondly at his habit of defeating dark wizards and armies bent on world domination, yet his inability to cast cleaning spells.  
  
All my life I've tried to be an honest person, and I will admit this is flattering. It's nice. It's nice for somebody to be devoting surreal amounts of time to essentially trying to make you happy. It's nice that he's doing this for me and not poodle girl down the street. He took the easy way out with her, paid for a nice meal in a restaurant and let some kid wash their dishes for minimum wage. He didn't get up at the crack of dawn only to go through a carton of eggs and a loaf of toast.  
  
My heart tells me maybe he's being serious. It tells me that only a crazy person would go to these lengths if they didn't mean it. But my head tells me he was on a date with another woman only a couple of days ago, and my head is asking me why he's doing this now.  
  
I'm uncomfortable with it. I also don't want to ask him to stop.

* * *

  
  
The kitchen is clean when I make my way downstairs and he's organizing some papers on the coffee table. I figure they're notes and he's got a full day ahead.  
  
I walk past him to gather my things for the day and he looks up, and really looks at me. At first, his gaze settles on my mouth and by now, I'm half afraid he'll get up. Afraid of Harry, the guy whom I've been with almost every day for almost a decade, the guy who's slept in my bed more than once and seen me cry and filled me in on the rumor mill. It's still the same guy, I try to tell myself, but I can't remember a time old Harry fixated on my lips.  
  
"You look, uh, great." He manages after a minute.  
  
"Thank you. I have an important meeting with the Prophet representatives."  
  
He nods and gets up. I feel cornered. Speak up now or forever hold your peace.  
  
"What?" It's lame, but it's the best I can come up with on short notice.  
  
He chooses to invade my space, like he's done a hundred times a day every day, but now it's unnerving to have him tower over me.  
  
"You're not my sister, Hermione."  
  
I know that he'll try to prove that one to me later, but I know I can also strike it off the list right now. There's nothing brotherly about him this morning. He taps my arm slightly and tells me I'll be late.  
  
There's a moment where I'm suffering from temporary insanity because I give very serious consideration to doing something I shouldn't. Then he unwittingly saves me by stepping back and allowing me a path to the front door. The rush of fresh air knocks some sense back into me.


	6. Just Falling Deeper

All I wanted to do was to prove that her list was irrational and unfounded and now I'm watching her go out the door. Except my eyes are traveling across her body and – oh my God. I'm staring at my best friend's ass.  
  
Did I ever do this before? But you've known her forever, I remind myself.   
  
I will admit that when we first met, I hadno romantic interest in her whatsoever, but in a matter of a few days it had all changed completely. Or maybe not. Ever since we graduated from Hogwarts, I've had this silly habit of flirting with her. We've always laughed it off…but what if it wasn't quite so silly after all?   
  
Why was I so confused? Was she this confused? Of course not, she's never really shown interest in me… has she? Everyone else seems to think so. Am I blind? Is she? The Harry and Hermione sideshow, ladies and gentlemen.  
  
Once we decided that it was practical for the two of us to share a place near Diagon Alley –both of us would be out on our own for the first time and we thought we might as well do it together– I bid myself to not think about Hermione that way, even though all around us speculation was rampant about the nature of our relationship.  
  
I sigh and head upstairs to get ready for the day.

. . . .

  
  
  
The day turns out to be as unproductive and unfocused as the one before it. I spend the time spacing out during interviews and accidentally implying that I in fact have a disfigured rump area from riding a broom so much. I cannot concentrate. Her face is always there. And her hair. Her legs. Her breasts. The silk that is her skin. By the time the session ends, I'm ready to jump out of my own skin. When Taryn, a cute blonde who works at the studio, invites me to come out with everyone for a drink, I only agree to go so that I won't think about Hermione for five minutes.  
  
I shouldn't be thinking these things.  
  
I'm not a drinker really, despite constant taunting from Ron and the guys. But Taryn buys me a drink and I take a few sips to be polite.  
  
"Will you be back tomorrow?" she asks me, flashing a blindingly white smile at me and leaning forward across the bar to retrieve her own drink from the new bartender at Three Broomsticks.  
  
It's not my fault that she's almost spilling out of her top. She's right in my line of vision. What am I supposed to do, close my eyes?  
  
I do. "So they tell me, they want to go over next season's free agents." I answer her and then open my eyes to settle on her face.  
  
She's smiling, certainly aware of her "assets".  
  
"I'm happy to hear that," she coos.  
  
What am I doing? Number five looms before my eyes in bold print. _You are a shameless flirt._  
  
"I should go," I tell Taryn and her lips settle into a pout.  
  
"So early? Why?"  
  
"I have to get home."  
  
"To your roommate?" she asks.  
  
"How do you know I have a roommate?" I ask her. We had just met today. She gives me a look.  
  
"Oh." Damn the reporters.  
  
Taryn leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. "Is she really just your roommate?"  
  
How do I answer that?  
  
"Yeah," I nod, and can't help but notice the glumness in my voice. I hope Taryn doesn't.  
  
She arches one perfectly shaped eyebrow.  
  
"So then, what's the rush?" She puts her hand on my arm and trails a manicured nail across my skin.  
  
There are reasons, I think. A whole list, even. Funny though, I can't think of a single one right now.

. . . .

  
  
  
By the time I get home, I'm not thinking about much of anything. Somehow, Taryn managed to convince me that I should finish that drink. And then another. One more, come on, it'll loosen you up, she told me.  
  
She got me out onto the dance floor and even though I'm pretty sure I didn't discover my lost rhythm, we enjoyed ourselves enough that Taryn accompanied me home and I got a closer look at that cleavage. Everyone on my street did, unless maybe the Dark Mark was scrawled on my front door behind us and that's what everybody was looking at.  
  
Taryn is giggling, and her hand is already working on the buttons along my shirt so that I fumble into the house and laugh along with her.  
  
"Wait," I tell her and she presses me against the door, her hands seeking out everything.  
  
We bang heads accidentally. In our state, we find this incredibly hilarious and she clings to me as she tries to catch her breath.   
  
The door opens and I look up at Hermione.  
  
"I couldn't open the door," I tell her by way of explanation as Taryn breaks into another round of laughter.  
  
"Apparently."  
  
"I had a bit much to drink," I tell her, slurring my words and reaching for something to steady me.  
  
"It would seem."  
  
She starts to move away from the door.  
  
"Wait, we have company!" I call after her and she turns and looks coolly at the two of us. "This is, uhhhh, ummm...."  
  
"Taryn" Taryn offers.  


Hermione purses her lips. "Great, Taryn," she says.  
  
The warm air from the house hits me and the room starts to spin.  
  
"Next time, make sure you have a better hold on the doorknob of the DOOR," Hermione tells me and starts up the stairs.  
  
Oh, shit.  
  
"Herm-ee-o!" I try to call her name, but its too complicated for me to pronounce at the moment. She shakes her head and continues up the stairs.  
  
Taryn comes up behind me and runs her hands down my back, pulling the ends of my shirt out of my pants.  
  
"Three's a crowd," she tells me and leans into me, pulling my hands up to run the length of her body.  
  
Hermione's door slams shut.  
  
It's enough to sober me momentarily and I pull away from Taryn.  
  
"You should go."  
  
"Why? The night is young."  
  
Her tongue darts along the skin of my neck and I close my eyes.  
  
"Tara, I don't think I should do this."  
  
"Taryn," she corrects me. "Just roommates, huh?" She shrugs. "Your loss."  
  
It takes only a moment for her to gather her things and I'm alone once more.  
  
As much as I want to, there's no way I can make it up those stairs tonight.  
  


*

  
Cute and blonde. Do they come any other way?   
  
I hear the front door slam shut and assume she's left, because he's making a ruckus stumbling around the couches. Somebody should help him upstairs so he's closer to the bathroom. I don't know why I should care anyway.  
  
But I do.  
  
I want nothing more than toswitch on the wireless and drown everything out with some music, loud enough to drown out the noises he's making and then revel in his hangover tomorrow morning. But he cleaned the house and he made me breakfast, so I feel indebted.  
  
What if I'd kissed him this morning? Would he have brought her home?  
  
There must be something seriously wrong with me. I must be warped for even thinking this way. He obviously had one thing on mind when they walked through the door and it wasn't me. Which really shouldn't matter.

But it does.

. . . .

  
  
  
"Hermyy, I don't feel so good." He moans when I finally decide to be an adult and go downstairs, some 20 minutes later.  
  
"I can see that. Can you make it upstairs?"  
  
He shakes his head slowly, and I take a deep breath, then get up and head for the bucket in the hallway. I'm certain he'll need it at some point and I'm most definitely not in the mood for cleaning up the floor after him. I also grab a couple of bottles of water and implore him to drink as much as he can. Unfortunately, there was no potion for hangovers or whatever he was expiriencing. There was a potion to decrease nausea, though. I'd fetch that in a minute.  
  
"Gotta pee." He groans.  
  
What can I do but help him to the bathroom. I still have my pride and anger intact, and don't go in there with him. So what if he hits his stupid head on the porcelain bowl? I stay in the hallway, leaning my back against the wall, softly hitting my head over and over in the hope my fuzzy mind clears up. No such luck, as he comes out, looking particularly miserable. I hand him the potion and he downs it eagerly.  
  
"You should lie down." I state the obvious and drag him back to the living room where he sprawls on the couch, lying down on his stomach, his head hanging off slightly.  
  
I sit next to him for a second, afraid he'll fall off. His eyes are droopy, and he slurs out some form of apology my way.  
  
"I suck. Like Malfoy. You wanna hit me? You should hit me."  
  
"I'm not going to hit you, Harry."  
  
"Can you stay with me tonight to make sure I don't die?" He whines.  
  
"You're not going to die. I'm going to bed."  
  
"I was thinking about you all day..." He says and then attempts to look up at me. I cannot he believe he is telling me such a bold-faced lie. I refrain from slapping him because he is sick.  
  
"God, Harry, that's just insulting. Go to sleep."  
  
I turn on my heels and he mutters something else but I'm steaming and don't want to hear any of it.  
  
I can't believe him. Did he think it would be a grand gesture, a compliment to me to claim I was occupying his thoughts for hours on end? Am I supposed to feel grateful that he'd afford me a fraction of his attention?  
  
I'm not going to cry about this. That would be the final humiliation to end a peachy evening. I. Will. Not. Cry.

. . . .

  
  
  
The next morning, we have a very brief encounter in the bathroom. He looks like shit and is popping some muggle aspirin in his mouth like they're Bertie Botts. I've overslept and am late, and he seemingly respects that because he slinks down to his room and lets me get dressed. On my way out, I hear him in the kitchen, and for a split second, I wonder if he's making me breakfast again, but I never find out because I just yell out a goodbye and close the door before he's had a chance to reply.  
  
This whole thing is probably my fault for writing that stupid list in the first place. Of course, I blame him for last night, although I'm not sure why. It's his house too, he can bring whomever he wants home. I'm not his mother and I'm not his sister, that much he's made crystal clear, so it's really not my business whom he decides to fraternize with.  
  
I decide to tell him so and at the end of the day, walk back into our house with a sense of purpose.   
  
As soon as I open the door, a pleasant smell of home cooking hits me. Teriyaki sauce. I find him by the stove, looking infinitely better, and well, alive.  
  
"Hi?" I say, tentatively.  
  
"Oh, Hermione, you're home. I bought a wok."  
  
"A wo - Why?"  
  
"So I can make you dinner. Stir fry. Do you want it with chicken or shrimp? I bought both, wasn't sure which you preferred. Or if you want, we can just have it vegetarian."  
  
"Harry, this has got to stop." I say and put down my bag on the counter.  
  
"What? I'm just cooking."  
  
"This list thing is insane and it's stupid and I'm sorry I ever wrote it out! I want you to stop, just stop, stop running around with a bottle of Mr. Clean on the spill you made worse because you can't use cleaning charms. And stop putting those blue tablets in the toilet bowl after turning the water green by trying to curse away the dirt. And stop getting up at dawn to prove you can fry an egg."  
  
He very slowly puts down the wooden spoon he was using and moves the wok off to the side, then turns to face me.  
  
"Is this about last night? I'm sorry. I was drunk, it was stupid."  
  
He said he was sorry.  
  
"I just want you to stop, please."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because this is just sick. It's sick and it's insulting to me. You spend all this time doing these things, and then I start wondering and worse yet, I think about what you said and what you meant and how you touched me. I shouldn't care how you touch me. I thought about those things and then you bring the very next girl home and it's wrong and dishonest and so please, don't do it anymore, because it's not fair or right."  
  
"I didn't mean to upset you. I shouldn't have brought her here." He whispers that last part.  
  
"Look, it's fine, it doesn't matter. Why don't you let me finish dinner, and then we can go pick up a movie or something?"  
  
"I'll finish this."  
  
"Fine." I sigh and turn to go.  
  
"I don't want that girl."  
  
"She has a name, Harry. And you did want her, at least for a while, because if I hadn't been home, you know what would have happened."  
  
"Yeah, because it was her face that I saw all day, right? When I closed my eyes and opened them, it wasn't her, believe me."  
  
I don't know how to reply. My thoughts meandered back to him all day too, so I don't think he's making it up. I think he mistakes my silence for acquiescence, because with the next thing he says to me, he's going for broke.  
  
"I wanted you. I want you." He corrects himself, red faced.  
  
"You have a funny way of showing it." I shoot back.  
  
"It doesn't make it any less true."  
  
"You need to figure out why you think that way, Harry. Maybe it's some sort of need you have to have fulfilled, maybe you miss tliving with he Weasleys or Lupin or everyone else and I'm the closest you have or maybe you've gotten so used to being the centre of attention that you want to be the Sun around which I revolve every day or maybe you've always wondered what it would be like to really, really touch me and you want to satisfy that curiosity once and then move on. Because you only think you want me and you only think that now and again and then you put it out of your mind and I'm just plain old Hermione again and you come home in the middle of the night with a woman." I take a breath. "You don't want me, you never have."


	7. Light at the End of the Tunnel?

A/N: Hello there! Thank you again for the reviews, trust me I AM reading them. I should probably warn you that this story will be pretty long (make that very, lol) and there will be lots of angst. But I believe that the build-up of anticipation will make the event that much more enjoyable. . . .or you'll all get very impatient and hate me. Lol. OH and someone mentioned that Harry SHOULD know how to cook. I guess that slippied my mind. . .but a lot of the humor involves Harry not being able to cook. Therefore I guess this story will be AU, in which Harry does not know how to cook. Sorry, hope that doesn't bother too many of you. . .anyway, enjoy the next chapter!

I don't know what to say so I just stare at her.  
  
She sighs and tries to move past me, to the stairs.  
  
"I want you," I say quietly.  
  
"No, you don't" she insists.  
  
"Why do you think that?"  
  
"Taryn. Melissa, Holly, Parvati, that waitress, heck even Lavender. Reporters. Fans. And I know I'm missing some because I don't know what the hell you really did in America."  
  
"Hermione."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You forgot the most important one."  
  
She sighs, "I don't want to be another notch on your bedpost, Harry."  
  
"Wow, you really think so highly of me?"  
  
She rolls her eyes and I immediately grow serious.   
  
"Do you know what I thought about all day during my session, Hermione?"  
  
"Me. You already mentioned that."  
  
"Yeah, you."  
  
"Yet it all seems to have flown out the window the minute Taryn showed you any attention."  
  
"I was trying not to think about you!"  
  
"Umm, thanks?"  
  
I sigh exasperatedly. "We're friends, Hermione. You said so yourself. Do you think that this has been easy for me?"  
  
"Oh, well, in that case…"  
  
"I thought about you, Hermione. I thought about how funny you are and how you always call me on my bullshit. I thought about how you always pay attention to what I'm talking about even if it's just insane rambling. I thought about how you know when I need to talk and when I need to be quiet."  
  
"That's what friends do," she answers, trying to move away from me.  
  
"Do friends think about how soft your skin is? Do they think about your legs? Your mouth? Do they think about…"  
  
"Stop."  
  
"Your eyes, how beautiful they are?"  
  
"Stop it, Harry."  
  
"Your mouth…"  
  
"You already said that."  
  
I move forward and brush a strand of hair away from her mouth. She blinks and shakes her head.  
  
"Harry…"  
  
"I want you."  
  
"I don't want you."  
  
I drop my hands to my side and suck in a breath.   
  
She looks like she's going to say something else but instead she takes the opportunity to move past me and leaves me standing there.  
  
"Then why can't you look at me?" I ask and all I get in response is silence.

. . . .

  
  
  
Hermione spends the remainder of the evening in her room and when I finally head upstairs, I see that there is still some light streaming from beneath her door.  
  
What the hell, I've already managed to destroy this evening. Why not beat a dead horse?  
  
I knock and it takes some time before she answers.  
  
"It's late, Harry."  
  
"I need to tell you something."

"What?"  
  
"Can you open the door, please?"  
  
She opens it slightly and nods at me. "Go on."  
  
"I thought about you today too."  
  
"Lucky me."  
  
"Did you think about me?"  
  
She sighs.  
  
I press on. "Today. Yesterday. When you were writing that damned list."  
  
She doesn't answer.  
  
I push the door open with my foot.  
  
"Now?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Were you thinking about me now?"  
  
She lifts her chin stubbornly and I cup her face in my hands so that she can't look away.  
  
And then I kiss her.

*

  
  
  
The moment I lifted my face and looked up at him, I knew how this conversation would end. He had that look in his eye, the slightly glazed look with just a hint of excitement and a hint of fear and when he blinked in slow motion, I knew.  
  
People say that before you die, you see your whole life flash before your eyes. I saw every one of our previous pseudo-kisses, the ones that got reporters talking and speculating. The ones we had just for playing around, because their reaction was funny. It was funny. Fun. Meaningless. I had experienced first hand his technique, and I expected it to be like it was then.   
  
Except it was nothing like that.  
  
He must have licked his lips and I didn't notice because they're warm and just slightly moist and they press against mine insistently enough to make this a non-platonic kiss, but he's lacking the confidence to go further. My eyes slip shut, involuntarily and in the instant he starts to pull away, I know that's the last thing I want so I throw caution to the wind, forget about the drunk blonde and respond to him. I'm in a daze and uncertain about what to do with my hands, so I place them on his chest. There's still quite enough breathing space between us and I'm not in any hurry to bridge it.  
  
All those times he kissed me before and I never felt the need to throw my arms around his neck, but it's there now. Another second and I'd have done it except he pulls away and I miss the feel of him immediately. This is way better than I remembered it.  
  
It's almost 2 in the morning. What are we doing?  
  
My first instinct is to look away, but for some reason my eyes land on his lips, and they look like lips which have just been kissed. I like that.  
  
"So, what's the verdict?" He asks jokingly, but his features betray his nervousness.  
  
I blush. "It was...nice."  
  
"Yeah?" I think he might be encouraged.  
  
I nod mutely, not sure how to proceed. How come poodle girl and the blonde got to feel this way before I did? I try to push it out of my mind, I'm not a jealous person. Why are my hands still on his chest?  
  
"Do you want to, uh, do it again?" I ask him. Alright, now I know I've completely lost it. I can't believe I'm asking what I'm asking. I must sound pathetic. Thankfully, he doesn't need much encouragement, and soon, we're standing in my doorway and he lets his hands fall to my hips so that we're closer than we were before. It feels about a hundred times better than it should. The second kiss is the same as the first, slow and tentative, except this time I kiss him back as soon as our lips make contact and I think I can feel him smile a little.  
  
After a long moment, we pull apart and my brain is working overtime. It needs to think about this. Sit and think, somewhere where Harry isn't in my line of sight so that I won't resort to something as embarrassing as asking him to kiss me again.  
  
"That was, uh, nice, good, very nice. I, uh, have an early morning, and you probably do too, so..."  
  
He nods, understanding what I'm saying, but I also sense he doesn't really want to go and I definitely don't want him to leave, but he's got to go. I smile at him apologetically and open the door wider.  
  
"Was it like that....last night....with her?" I blurt out softly just as he's trying to leave.  
  
He shakes his head back and forth and tucks a lock behind my ear. "Not in the least." He says and I really want to believe him.   
  
I'm thankful when he finally decides to give in to what I've asked of him and goes. Halfway to his room, I'm still in the doorway of my own and he whips his head around, gives me a tiny smile before he disappears.

. . . .

  
  
  
I fully expect next morning to be awkward. Were it not for my need to report to the office at 10, I'd stay in my room, under the covers, but alas, I don't have that luxury.  
  
As I'm about to hit the stairs, I hear the doorbell and he gets it. So he's been up for a while, I deduce.  
  
The perky voice belongs to none other than poodle girl. "Morning Harry!"  
  
"Oh, Holly, hi."  
  
"Did you guys get your paper? I didn't get my paper, that damn owl didn't bring it."  
  
My flip flops smack against my heel as I walk down past the hall and into the kitchen, and even though I'm behind him and he can't see me, he knows I'm up. Maybe it's good she showed up, she's saving me from an uncomfortable morning. I don't know where we stand, there wasn't any talking last night. And maybe I'd like to curse her nose off her face.

*

  
  
  
I can learn from my mistakes.  
  
Holly is standing in front of me and Hermione is behind me. It isn't that hard to turn around.  
  
"You're up."  
  
Clearly.  
  
"Yeah, I have some things to do. I'll see you later." She brushes past Holly and I and is halfway out before I move.  
  
"Hermione!"  
  
"I'm late, Harry."  
  
"Will you be home for dinner?"  
  
"I should be."  
  
"Okay."  
  
She nods toward the house. "You'd better attend to Heather."  
  
I don't correct her.

. . . .

  
  
  
When she gets home, I'm waiting for her in the living room.  
  
She drops her bag on the floor.  
  
"You didn't cook for me?"  
  
"I thought we could go out."  
  
"Ahhh, so it wore off already?" she teases.  
  
"I thought we could go do something."  
  
She's quiet.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
"Like a date?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"We need to talk, Harry."  
  
I shake my head, not willing to give her an inch so that she can take a mile.  
  
"We need to eat. I'm starving. Let's go."  
  
I lead the way and reluctantly, she follows me.  
  
"What do you want to do?" I ask her, as walk down to Diagon Alley.  
  
"Eat."  
  
"After that."  
  
"Harry, I can't date you."  
  
"Why not?" I want to know.  
  
"You know why."  
  
"I also know that you kissed me back last night."  
  
She blushes and turns toward the window.  
  
"Momentary lapse of judgment," she mutters, trying to make it sound like she's translating her ancient runes or something.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Who are we kidding, Harry?" She turns back to me.  
  
"Ourselves?" I guess. "We are, Hermione. I want you. I think you want me."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because I can't."  
  
"Because you're afraid."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"That you're Holly. Or Taryn. Or whoever."  
  
"Why can't we just stay friends?"  
  
"I'm friends with Ron. Lavender. Ginny. Fred and George. Parvati. Oliver. Some other people I knew in school. I have lots of friends. Enough friends."  
  
"What's wrong with having one more?"  
  
"I don't want them in my bed, Hermione."  
  
"God, why do you say things like that?"  
  
"They're true?"  
  
"If I asked you to turn around right now, if I said, 'Let's go home and have wild sex on our dining room table', what would you say?"  
  
I stop and turn to her.  
  
"I'd say no," I say seriously.  
  
Her eyes grow wide.  
  
"I want to be with you, Hermione. But not because it's been awhile between pit stops. And not because I want to add you to my list, but because I look at you and I forget to breathe. Because I'm seeing you everywhere."  
  
"If you want me..."  
  
"I want you."  
  
"Then..."  
  
"If you asked me to take you home to make love with you... if you were willing to rip up that list, I'd move so fast your head would spin."  
  
She looks down at her hands.  
  
"A date, Hermione. That's all I'm asking for. Dinner. Then you decide."  
  
"Even if I decide that all I want is dinner?"  
  
"Even if that's all."


	8. Why Muggle TVs Dont Belong in Wizarding ...

He suggests we go Italian tonight, which is fine by me. The restaurant is nice, definitely on the pricey side, but not stuffy. I'm surprised when he orders a chicken dish.   
  
"You love pasta."   
  
"Too messy."   
  
Ah, so he wants to minimize the chances of ending up with sauce on his shirt.   
  
"You don't need to impress me, Harry. We've eaten together a hundred times before."   
  
"That was then."   
  
"And this is now?" I smile at the cliche.   
  
Our food appears on the fancy china. As we dictate our orders clearly to the menu, Harry strikes up some conversation.

  
"So, have you read any good books lately?"   
  
I laugh. "That's so contrived, such a date question."   
  
He hangs his head a bit. "I know."   
  
"Okay, my turn. What would you do if you had a million galleons?"   
  
"I have a million galleons." He's apologetic.   
  
"Remind me again why I'm paying half the rent?"   
  
"Because you're not exactly poor?"   
  
"True. So, how do we blow our money?"   
  
"Wanna go to Tahiti?"   
  
"Bora Bora." I'm sure about this one. I've seen pictures of little huts built right over the water. If that's not paradise, I don't know what is.   
  
"Why there?"   
  
I tell him about the little huts and how they bring you breakfast by loading it up on a little boat. And if you want fish, they catch it right there and the water is so clear and the sand below is so white that you can see everything, every fish.   
  
"Living on water?" He's not convinced. "I thought you hated water."  
  
"It looks beautiful." I assure him. And I know I'm giddy and excited and probably sound like a kid at Christmas, but he doesn't seem to mind.   
  
"Okay. I could do that. Maybe sometime."   
  
"I guess that's different about us now. Money, time, opportunity. Most people would kill to have just one of those three and we might have all of them."   
  
"We're spoiled brats." He grins.   
  
He's careful to follow all of the 2 bazillion steps Mr. Manners has established to be a vital part of dinner etiquette. It's too formal and it bugs me after a while, so I pick up my fork and spear a piece of chicken on his plate, wanting to see who ordered a better entree. He relaxes a bit when I do that and we thankfully fall back into our old pattern. I smile at my successful plan.  
  
We talk about our jobs. How being the editor of a brand new paper was stressful and how I'm starting to feel like I got in over my head and perhaps I should go back to St. Mungo's. Harry firmly says he believes in me. I say the same when he tells me he thinks he's going to implode, having to handle the press and meetings without his teammates. 

  
"What do you want for your birthday?" I ask him while we're waiting for dessert.   
  
"God. I'm almost a quarter of a century. It's scary, you know, to be able to say 'I remember, almost 20 years ago years ago...'. But it's also nice to have a good house and freedom. You don't have to get me anything, I cashed in on enough favours and free dinners and cleaning."   
  
"Still. I have to get something. Why not push me in the right direction?"   
  
"Bora Bora is that a way." He points and laughs.   
  
"You've got expensive taste."   
  
"Not like you wouldn't get anything out of it."   
  
The implication is pretty obvious to both of us. 

. . . .

  
  
  
I try and pay for half of the meal, but he'll have none of it, and insists that he'd like to do this properly. I'm having a nice evening, there's no point in arguing, so I let it go.   
  
"It's so nice outside, you want to just walk around a little?" He asks me and I comply. I do realize that it's a beautiful night but we're draped in darkness now and that always makes people go a little wonky.   
  
"If I hadn't known you for so long, it would be easier," I admit.   
  
"Why?" He's zipping up his jacket and I find it distracting.   
  
"Because then it's easier if you break up. Or if I see you with a Holly or a Taryn, it's alright in a way, because it comes down to a risk to benefit ratio. It's so high with us. If we lose this," I motion between us, "then maybe we lose everything else too."   
  
He laughs. "You really haven't changed much. Still trying to make everything logical. Our little Hermy." Then his face turned serious. "But it doesn't have to be that way."   
  
"Yeah, but Harry, how many times have you dated somebody and then when it went downhill, all you wanted was to never cross paths again. That's a natural response."   
  
"I never had a relationship I wasn't invested in. I wouldn't ask you out if I didn't think it could go somewhere. And even that night when I got drunk, in the morning, I was afraid you'd yell or be really angry, but I still wanted to see you, cross your path, if you will." 

We walk in silence for a few minutes.  
  
"I have an uncle," I begin my story, "And he married this great woman and they've got two kids, not really kids anymore, they're both older than me. And his whole life, he'd come home late or flirt with every woman at the Christmas party they went to."   
  
He gives me a pained look. He knows why I'm telling the story.   
  
"And when I got older, I asked my mom why my aunt put up with it for 30 years and my mom just said, 'Well, you know he's a womanizer.' Just like that. Like it was a personality trait or something and therefore it made it okay."   
  
"I flirt with girls. But that's it."   
  
"I guess it's a matter of being second fiddle your whole life."   
  
"Hermione, do you know how many women I've made love with?"   
  
"No." I'm not sure I want to know.   
  
"None."   
  
I look at him, shocked. "Impossible."

He sighs. "Made love, Hermione. There has to be love in the first place to do that, and that's never happened."  
  
I continue to stare. "Okay."   
  
"Don't you see? They'll never have me like you will. Can." He quickly corrects himself. "Can."   
  
"I know what you meant." I assure him. He wore his heart on his sleeve tonight, I appreciate how difficult it must have been. That's why, when he seeks out my hand, I grab his and hold on tightly, comfortably.   


. . . .

  
  
  
It's strange to be on a date and then head back to the house we're sharing. The good thing is, we don't have to stand on the front porch and figure out who makes the first move or good-bye kiss or whatever. The bad thing is, there's always the hallway in front of our rooms.   
  
"Do you have a busy day tomorrow?" He asks me.   
  
"Yeah. You?"   
  
"Of course. They're still hounding me about the damn broom exhibition." He looks at the time. "You wanna watch TV for a little while?"   
  
"Sure." I'm relieved we don't have to say goodnight yet.   
  
He finds an old episode of Iron Chef, and even though squid grosses him out, he settles on this channel.   
  
I've never before given any thought to how we sit next to each other. I've never been afraid to put my feet up on the coffee table or to rest my head against his shoulder or for him to put his feet in my lap. I'm pretty sure he's thinking the same thing now; we're side by side, not touching, sitting up stiffly.   
  
"Did you have a nice time?"   
  
"Yeah." I can't lie. I'm trying to figure out how to work in touching some part of him. He's too close for me to resist. I wonder if he'll ask me out again. If his mother comes here for his birthday, I'm dead. She'll know, she'll see it in my face. I don't care. I scoot closer to him. I'm not his sister, but I'm also still not his type. I'm in between somewhere. I don't care.   


*

  
  
  
I meant what I said about how I can't breathe when she's near me. Take now, for example.   
  
She's close to me on the couch and is staring straight ahead at the TV screen.   
  
"Ugh," I comment, turning my face away from the squid.   
  
"Have you ever had it?" she laughs.   
  
"No, and I don't think I will, thank you."   
  
"It's good to try new things."   
  
"Would you settle for my trying something a little less disgusting?"   
  
"Like what?"   
  
I think for a moment. "Sushi?"   
  
"You've never had sushi?" she asks incredulously.   
  
"You have?"   
  
"Sure," she shrugs.   
  
"Like raw fish?"   
  
"Yeah," she laughs.   
  
I give her a doubtful look.   
  
"Will you try it?"   
  
"Maybe."   
  
She smiles to herself.   
  
"That's on the list, isn't it?" I ask her.   
  
"What?"   
  
"That I'm afraid to try new things."   
  
She nods slowly.   
  
"So if I try sushi, will you cross that off?"   
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"Okay, then I'll try squid."   


. . . .

  
  
  
The Iron Chef finishes with the squid and I flip through the channels, looking for something else.   
  
There is the usual barrage of infomercials and I finally stop flipping for a moment.   
  
I turn to Hermione.   
  
"Can I cross off that I'm not your type?"   
  
"Harry..."   
  
"Because we have fun together, Hermione. We can talk to each other. Or we can sit here and not talk. And because last night, when I kissed you, you asked me to do it again. And all of this makes me think that even if I wasn't your type before, maybe you've changed your mind."   
  
"I haven't."   
  
"You're not attracted to me? Is that it? Okay, I'll admit, this hair," I point to the dark unruly mass. "My feet are too big and I'm weird. I do that nostril thing too much. I can't dance and ..."   
  
"Aren't you supposed to be pointing out your finer points?" she interrupts me.   
  
"I was getting to that."   
  
"Okay."   
  
"I am all these things, but when I smile, I mean it. And when I kiss you, I can feel that you want me. I think I have nice eyes. And these hands..." I hold them out in front of her. "They can be pretty useful."   
  
She takes one. "Soft," she murmurs.   
  
"That too."   
  
I keep my eyes on her.   
  
"Harry?"   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
"Would you mind..." she blushes.  
  
"What?" There, now I can't breathe again. Does she want to. . .  
  
She nods at the TV and I tear my eyes away from her and focus on the screen.   
  
"What is this?" I manage to choke out after a moment. Some old lady is describing how to use ... oh, sweet merciful... Merlin…  
  
"It's a sex show!" I exclaim and try to change the channel.   
  
This woman, Sue something-or-another, is now talking about nocturnal emissions.   
  
I can't change the channel fast enough. This is not happening.   
  
Hermione doubles over, laughing.   
  
"It's just sex," she says.   
  
I'm not watching a sex show with Hermione! "It's late," I say and turn the TV off.   
  
I head upstairs and she follows me and then stops at her door.   
  
"Harry?"   
  
"What?"   
  
"Sweet dreams." She closes her door and I can still hear her laughing.   
  
"They're about you!" I remind her and the laughter stops. 


	9. Remember When?

I don't get much rest that night, that's what happens when you've got a hundred thoughts competing for attention in your head.   
  
I keep thinking there should be some defined way I feel about all of this, but there isn't. A pro and con list might be helpful, but I've sworn off lists for a while, seeing as how the last one brought me more than I bargained for.   
  
When I told him he wasn't my type, I wasn't using it as a tool to put distance between us. It's how I felt. It had nothing to do with the way he looks or the fact he can't dance or the fact that he can have any woman he wants, but this feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe we've been like two caged animals for a very long time and now we have a taste of freedom and the first instinct is to be indulgent. And of course it's natural to have developed some sort of feelings for each other.   
  
I know there's a popular theory floating around that a man and a woman can't be friends without sex entering the picture at least once. Not necessarily the act of sex, but wondering whether there is something more going on.   
  
I had every intention of being his best friend and his roommate. I think he had the same intention.   
  
We might have even stayed that way if every person and their brother didn't keep grilling us about the hows and whys of our situation. After a while, you start to wonder. And now I'm stuck in a place where he's still not the type of guy I'd get together with, but just the same I feel attracted to him and resentful that he didn't kiss me good night. He cheated me of that nice feeling I enjoyed yesterday. He's made me greedy for his lips.   
  
I'm up here, sitting on the fence, scared to jump off, and unhappy with the notion of staying put.   
  
  
. . . .   
  
  
I'm gone before he's up the next morning, but I leave him a note to go and buy something for Melissa's barbecue. I'm sure that by noon, he'll appear in the common office fireplace begging me to tell him exactly what to get.   
  
I know him too well.   
  
"Hey." He says, then launches right to the heart of the matter. "What do you bring to a barbecue?"   
  
"I have no idea. Go buy some dessert or a bottle of wine or something."   
  
"Wait, we're expected to bring our own food and drink?"   
  
"Just do it, Harry."   
  
I spend most the afternoon sitting around while the other editing guys argue with the me until we finally decide we'd be better off without that particular article anyway. His head pops up again.  
  
"I have to go to Darsbury this afternoon, I'll be back the day after tomorrow, early morning."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"The World Quidditch Association wants me to go and try to persuade the Tornados manager to release Klining as a free agent. It's stupid." He rolls his eyes.  
  
"Okay, I'll pick something up for Melissa, go get packed."   
  
"I don't wanna go." He whines.   
  
"It's for less than 48 hours."   
  
"I could come back and you'll have found some hot stud who can cook better than me."   
  
Yeah, because they grow on trees. I chuckle.   
  
"I won't."   
  
"Aw, honey, you'll wait for me? How sweet."   
  
"Yeah, I'm just sugary. If I'm not up when you get back, wake me? I need to get some stuff done in the morning."   
  
"Okay. I'll see you then."   
  
  
. . . .   
  
  
The house is quiet. There are containers of Chinese food on the table.   
  
"Got you those flat rice noodles you like. Didn't have time to cook." The note next to them says. It's his writing.   
  
I pull that wok he got out of the pantry and throw in the contents of the containers. I don't know why I don't just heat them with the spell, the idea of using something of Clay bought….no, I'm not thinking that. I can hear sizzling in a couple of minutes, so I get a plate and pick up my cell phone. I punch in the only number I've ever called on it, since I only have this phone for one reason, after all.  
  
"Hi mom. I'm fine, thanks, you? Just about to have dinner. What do you think about Harry?" 

* 

My team manager says I did a good job and I should go explore the town. I decline, just wanting to get the rest of the meetings over. Sooner, rather than later.   
  
It's not that I'm worried about the hot stud, it's that I feel this insane, childish need to stay in her face about that list. I don't want her to have time to think of ways to deny every single item on it.   
  
The ordeal is torturous. I want nothing more than to yell at everyone "Can I go home now?"

  
Klining, the player we're trying to sign, finally invites me out to a bar and I tell him that I promised someone I'd go straight home. He smirks but moves on.   
  
When we finally wrap and are told we can return to London., it's a wonder that I don't splinch myself in all the rush.   
  
I arrive home and the house is still dark. I drop my bag at the door and climb the stairs.   
  
I open her door and step over to her bed and sit on the edge.   
  
"Hermione," I say softly, brushing my fingers along her face.   
  
She sighs and shifts slightly in her sleep.   
  
"Wake up..."   
  
"Mmmm."   
  
"You asked me to wake you up," I whisper.   
  
God, it would be so easy. I want to kiss her again and it would be so easy...   
  
"You're late," she says, opening her eyes.   
  
"It was a long meeting."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Yeah, and there was this person who asked me to a bar..."   
  
She stiffens.   
  
"Klining."   
  
"What?"   
  
"He invited me out to some bar."   
  
"Oh." She stiffles a laugh. "Did you have loads of fun, then?"   
  
"Shut up!"   
  
She rolls over. "What time is it?"   
  
"A little before six."   
  
"I'm going back to sleep," she murmurs, her voice muffled by the pillow.   
  
"Oh, okay." I stand up.   
  
"Melissa said to tell you she missed you."   
  
"Okay."   
  
"I missed you." She mumbles softly.  
  
She turns towards the wall and I shut the door quietly behind me.   
  
  
. . . .   
  
  
When she emerges around 10, I make her waffles for breakfast and she looks suitably impressed.   
  
"Aunt Jemima," I admit.   
  
She laughs and I pour her some orange juice. "But that's fresh squeezed."   
  
"From the market down the street?" she teases.   
  
I stick out my bottom lip in a pout and she shakes her head.   
  
We finish breakfast and I move toward the sink with the dishes.   
  
"Let me help," she volunteers. She makes a move to perform the cleaning charm.  
  
"No, I've got it."   
  
"You cooked, at least let me clean or something."   
  
I relent and hand her the dish towel. She laughs and teases me yet again about my inability to clean things with magic.  
  
I wash and she dries and before long, the kitchen is spotless once again.   
  
"Thank you," I tell her.   
  
"No problem," she shrugs. "We're a good team."   
  
"Yeah," I smile awkwardly. "I told you."   
  
She catches on quickly. "That's not what I mean."   
  
"But it's true."   
  
"Maybe."   
  
I let out a whoop at her admission and she shakes her head.   
  
"I'm sorry I said anything."   
  
"You're weakening..." I tease her. "You want me."   
  
She swats me with the dishtowel.   
  
"I'm irresistable," I tell her and grab at the end of the dishtowel and pull.   
  
It's enough to catapult her toward me and the force of our bodies coming together sends us flying toward the floor where we land in an ungraceful heap.   
  
"You're insane!" she laughs and I break into laughter with her as we work to untangle ourselves.   
  
"Which you like," I grin at her.   
  
She tries to get to her feet, but she's still laughing so hard that she can't quite manage it.   
  
I stand and tug on her hands until she's standing and we're face to face.   
  
She stops smiling.   
  
"What?"   
  
Her tongue darts out and wets her lips. And I know what. But I can't move. I need to know.   
  
She gives me the answer I'm looking for as her lips touch mine and then that tongue comes forth once again and moves across my lips and I groan and crush her against me as I let her in.   
  
* 

Last year I had attended a special game up North. Harry played wonderfully and was praised, or course. Afterwards I met him outside his locker rooms and he grinned mischieviously. 

"There are enough reporters outside to populate a small country." I inform him.

He laughed. "How bout we give them something to report about?"

I looked at him blankly. He puckered his lips, and I got the picture.

"Well. . .I don't know. . ."

"Come on. You owe me!"

"For what?"

"I don't know, but you will some day."

I shake my head, and agree, for some reason that still, to this day, I cannot remember.  
  
As we stepped into the crazed mob of wizarding reporters, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.   
  
"Let's make it really hot. Tongue?"   
  
"Sure, what the hell."   
  
He dipped me right there. I think some of the fans whistled and clapped and others were stunned into silence. The latter group is what prompted him to have a talk with Mrs. Weasley and lead me to decide that enough was enough. Not that I regretted it, it just seemed like we should stop fooling around for a while in front of the cameras.  
  
So, if we're keeping score, I'd slid my tongue against his once before, very briefly. 

* * *  
  
This time, I do it on my terms. I was tired of thinking. My brain hurt. I wanted to feel.   
  
He acquiesces almost instantly, and I slide my tongue past his teeth until it meets his. He pulls me so close together in response that I lose my balance for a second and he senses that and presses me against the fridge. My fingers tangle in his crazy hair and I know I've been a fool to not have pursued this earlier.   
  
Lack of oxygen forces us to break apart momentarily and we're left gasping for air.   
  
"Wow." He says after a beat.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"That was-"   
  
"I know."   
  
Then his lips are back and his tongue and his hands, all of it, like they've been set free for the first time. It's the middle of the morning on a Saturday and I feel drunk as I raise my arms and circle his neck, like I wanted to that first time. I use his shoulders as leverage to raise myself on my toes and he moans into my mouth. The kitchen is so wrong for this.   
  
He pulls my shirt out of my pants and I purposely ignore the warning lights.   
  
One, two, three knocks at the door.   
  
"Harry." I pull back, out of breath. He kisses me again. "Door." I pull back again.   
  
"They'll come back." He's working on my neck. Four, five, six knocks at the door.   
  
"Go." I implore him and he curses softly, then tries to fix his shirt. I'm furiously tucking mine back in and pulling my hair up into a makeshift ponytail.   
  
"Hi Harry, you're back!" I can hear Melissa's voice. "Listen, I'm all out of room in my fridge, can I leave some stuff with you guys for tonight?"   
  
"Yeah, sure." He answers her and I bolt upstairs so she hasn't had a chance to give me the once over. I'm like a kid caught red-handed, trying to steal a candy bar.   
  
  
. . . .   
  
  
I can hear them loading food downstairs.   
  
This whole thing is my mother's fault. She got me to admit I missed him while he was gone for not even a whole day. She then pressed on until I admitted he may have asked me out, kind of. I finally caved and told her he'd kissed me twice, careful to omit the part where I actually instigated the second try.   
  
"And?"   
  
"And what?"   
  
"You're happy with this?"   
  
"I'm thinking about being happy with it." I say cautiously.  
  
"So what now?" She asked.   
  
"I don't know."   
  
But I knew. Oh, I knew.


	10. Revelations

A/N: I thought I would add that yes, this will have excessive fluff and love and all sorts of "I love yous". Not to the point that it gets sickening, though. And I love the angst. I think it builds character. LOL. Also, you may have noticed that I'm updating a tad slower than I used to. That would be because I am a high school senior and it's that time of year when everyone's rushing to get their college applications in. Just wanted to warn you that updates will be coming farther apart as I furiously try to collect my thoughts and write a college essay. I will try to update at least once a week, though. Anyway, thank you for the reviews and enjoy the next chapter!

Melissa follows me into the kitchen with a couple of bags of groceries.   
  
"Is that it?" I ask her, hoping that I'll be able to usher her out quickly. Like, about now.   
  
"Do you mind?" she asks sheepishly. "There's some more outside."   
  
I volunteer to get them while she puts away the groceries she is carrying and take off in a near sprint.   
  
Evidently, she is having another party. Or feeding a small army.   
  
She comes up behind me.   
  
"I'm sorry you missed the barbeque" she says brightly.   
  
"Oh yeah," I say apologetically, "Work, you know?"   
  
"Yeah," she smiles. "It was nice that Hermione came. Even though she didn't stay long."   
  
"No?" I ask absently, thinking of Hermione upstairs, probably envisioning me flirting with Melissa.   
  
"No, she seemed distracted. Like she had a lot on her mind. Is she okay?"   
  
I shrug, "Sure."   
  
"I think it's wonderful that you two are such good friends," Melissa tells me, grabbing a couple more bags and waiting for me to lead her back up to the house.   
  
I load up as many bags as I can carry and start up the walk, trying to not look like I'm rushing her out.   
  
"It is," I agree. "I love her."   
  
Melissa stops and I realize what I've said.   
  
"I mean, you know. I love her, she's great. She's one of my best friends."   
  
"Of course," she smiles.   
  
Inside the house, I attempt to cram the bags of groceries into various places of our kitchen as quickly as possible.   
  
"Wow, what's in your kitchen?" I tease her.   
  
"It's Jonathan's birthday," she says. Her boyfriend. "So basically, beer. Oh, and a cake." She shakes her head. "Last night was my birthday. Cute, huh? We're a day apart. So I got my barbeque and he's having a bunch of buddies over to celebrate his. I'm sure it will be quite the party."   
  
She rolls her eyes and looks appalled at the prospect.   
  
"It's supposed to be just for the guys," she continues. "But I guess they'll just have to put up with me."   
  
"Why don't you go out?" I suggest.   
  
She looks sheepish. "I haven't really been out here long. Jonathan is pretty much the only person I know, except for a couple of old ladies I work with."   
  
"Oh."   
  
She sighs, "Oh well."   
  
She's fishing for an invite and I know it.   
  
I really should check with Hermione. Not fifteen minutes ago, something was about to happen in our kitchen.   
  
I think.   
  
But she's still upstairs.   
  
"I should go," Melissa smiles. "Thanks for storing my food. I'll come pick it up early tomorrow."   
  
"Melissa, wait."   
  
She turns back around, "Yeah?"   
  
"Why don't you come hang out with us tonight?"   
  
What is wrong with me? Why are my brain and my mouth not connecting? I mentally kick myself.  
  
"Oh, that's sweet," she replies. "But I probably shouldn't."   
  
"Oh, okay."   
  
That was close.   
  
"Harry could use the company," Hermione's voice comes down the stairs, followed shortly thereafter by herself.   
  
I turn and give her a puzzled look.   
  
"I have to go home for a few days," she says by way of explanation.   
  
"Oh?" Melissa asks, truly concerned. "Is everything alright?"   
  
"Yeah," she smiles. "I just want to go see my mom."   
  
"Herm…" I open my mouth but she shakes her head slightly and I close it.   
  
"Okay, sure!" Melissa says, "If you don't mind, Harry."   
  
"Sure," I say, the question already forgotten.   
  
Melissa looks from me to Hermione and back and gives me another smile.   
  
"I should get going. Jonathan wants to go get a few things for his party." She looks towards Hermione, "I'm sorry you won't be here later, Hermione. But have a nice trip."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"I'll see you later," Melissa says to me and leaves.   
  
"So, I'm going to get going," she says, turning to leave as well.   
  
"You're running away," I state matter-of-factly.   
  
"I need to think, Harry."   
  
"So think."   
  
"I can't do that here."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
"Because you're not giving me a chance! You're going point by point through that list and my head is spinning."   
  
"You kissed me!"   
  
She ignores me.   
  
"I need to think about some things."   
  
"So you are changing your mind about me…"   
  
"I'm changing my mind about a lot of things. Maybe about living here with you."   
  
That stops me in my tracks.   
  
"What?"   
  
"I need to clear my head, Harry. I need room to breathe."   
  
"Hermione, don't you think that this is something we should talk about?"   
  
"Not now, Harry."   
  
"Well, what am I supposed to do?" I demand. "Am I supposed to just sit here and wait for you to make up your mind?"   
  
She looks like she wants to say something and then shakes her head.   
  
"Do whatever you want."   


*

  
  
  
I have monday and tuesday free, so I can tie this up into a three day retreat.   
  
The truth is, I'm worried about the validity of my list. 'We're friends.' That was point number one and I'd say it's still valid. It's as if he never even thought about that, he just jumped in, got both his feet wet as though it's the most natural thing in the world. I know he doesn't think of me as a sister and I don't know if we're each others' type, but it didn't seem to matter at all in the kitchen earlier on, so maybe he's right about that being an irrational reason.   
  
I have just a light bag with me, and he's waiting at the bottom of the stairs.   
  
"Well, I'm ready."

  
"I'll get you some tea." He points to the kitchen and runs off in that direction. I take a seat on the steps and wait.

He returns with tea and a smile. It's killing me that he's being this nice. I expected a blind fit of rage, and I'm getting this instead.   
  
"Harry, why are you being so nice to me?"   
  
"I love living with you, I don't want you to move out, I have no idea why you would. Things are good, I think."   
  
"I'm not leaving because I need to run away or I'm afraid. I just need a bit of space because this morning, that was so fast, like a split second and I was already thinking ahead to what's next and you were pulling my shirt out and I didn't want to sleep with you like that." The words tumble out of my mouth quickly and I'm a bit embarrassed at the last part, not sure whether it was presumptuous of me to have said it.   
  
"Why not?" He's not trying to be difficult, but he's asking anyway.   
  
"Well, for one, I really like Mrs. Weasley."   
  
"What?"   
  
"And you know she'd have plenty to say about what you were doing today and what you were thinking of doing."   
  
"You're not moving out on her account. That's crazy talk."   
  
"Look, just forget about that list for a few days, forget about trying so hard. It'll be good for you."   
  
He shakes his head. I finish off my tea. "You've completely fixated on this idea that you have to prove me wrong and prove that you're right. You're cooking even though you don't like it, you're lining up the magazines on the coffee table according to the the size of their surface area in order to prove that you can be neat, you've burned two of my shirts while ironing and you avert your eyes anytime a good looking woman passes by so that you aren't inclined to flirt with them."   
  
"So, what, all those things are wrong?"   
  
"If you want to go sit with Melissa for a night or take Holly out again, you should. And if you'd rather sleep in than make me eggs, then that's fine too. You can't change who you are and I don't want to force you into a mold to suit my needs."   
  
"You mean to tell me you'd be fine with me going out with somebody else if that's what I wanted?"   
  
I swallow hard. "Yes."   
  
"Well, I wouldn't." 

. . . .

  
  
  
I'm sitting in my mother's kitchen, having tea. We've got about 15 minutes before she drags me to somebody's house for show and tell. My father's down below the sink, trying to figure out why the garbage disposal is spitting instead of swallowing. I wanted to just fix it with magic, but my dad would have none of it. Some macho thing.  
  
"He likes you?"   
  
"Yes, I think so."   
  
"Who likes who?" My dad yells.   
  
"Whom." I correct him.   
  
"Harry likes Hermione."   
  
"Really?"   
  
"She says so. Right, Hermione?"   
  
I sigh.   
  
"He's not really your type is he?"   
  
"I told him that."   
  
"He didn't care?"   
  
"He's trying to prove me wrong."   
  
"So, is he your boyfriend now?"   
  
"I told him he could go see that redhead that lives across the street. She has a white poodle."   
  
"Must be something in the water." My mom walks over to the sink and tells my father.   
  
"What?"   
  
"In London. You become a celebrity, go out with another celebrity and then you start to act crazy a little. And I have to read about it in the paper. Maybe you should stop drinking the water there." She turns around and says to me. 

*

  
  
  
Melissa shows up promptly at seven o'clock.   
  
"Are you sure Jonathan doesn't mind that you're spending the evening with me?" I tease her as she follows me into the living room.   
  
"Oh, it's fine," she assures me.   
  
"So, what do you want to do?" I ask.   
  
"I don't know," she shrugs.   
  
"We have lots of movies," I tell her, motioning towards the collection I had built up. Most people are astonished at how I live my life so much like a muggle. The truth is, I like it.   
  
"Cool." She reads the titles and I go into the kitchen to retrieve some snacks.   
  
"Hey, Harry?" she calls.   
  
"Yeah?" I come back into the room balancing a bowl of popcorn and two glasses of iced tea.   
  
"What's this?"   
  
She hands me a piece of paper and I close my eyes. The list. THE list.  
  
"Where'd you find that?" I ask defensively, frantically trying to recall why it would be anywhere but in my pocket. I must have dropped it. I mentally kick myself.  
  
"I'm sorry," she apologizes. "It was just on the floor over here. I didn't read it..."   
  
"Really?" I ask doubtfully.   
  
"Well, maybe just a little," she admits.   
  
"How much?" I groan.   
  
"All of it? I'm sorry, Harry."   
  
"It's nothing," I tell her and fold it hurriedly and shove it back in my pocket.   
  
Melissa shrugs. "Okay."   
  
"It's just this stupid list that Hermione wrote."   
  
Why am I telling her this? I mentally kick myself again. I'm probably mentally bruised by now.  
  
She doesn't say anything.   
  
"I asked her why we aren't together," I blurt out.   
  
Melissa nods.   
  
"I mean, you thought we were together, didn't you? At first?"   
  
"Sure," she shrugs.   
  
"Why?"   
  
She gives me a puzzled look and takes a sip of her drink before answering.   
  
"You just seem so comfortable together. You seem like a couple."   
  
"She doesn't think so."   
  
"Of course not," Melissa replies. "She's your friend, right?"   
  
"Yeah, and I'm hers and I've wondered."   
  
"She's wondered too," she assures me. "It's just… have you ever given her any indication that you had deeper feelings for her? Have you treated her the way you've treated all the other women in your life?"   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
She sighs exasperatedly. "I mean, did she know that it meant something when you flirted with her?"   
  
"I guess not."   
  
"And," she continues, "This list…"   
  
"What about it?"   
  
"How did you react to it?" she asks. "Wait, don't answer that. Let me. What did it say? You're a slob. I've never seen this house so clean. I was wondering about that."   
  
"What's wrong with that?" I ask defensively, tired of asking the same question and never getting an answer.   
  
"Have you looked at another woman since she made that list?"   
  
"As a matter of fact, I have," I retort, thinking of Taryn.   
  
"Okay," she says, "But then what?"   
  
"Then I had to prove to her that I'd made a mistake."   
  
"That's all well and good, Harry," Melissa says, tucking her legs underneath herself on the sofa. "But I think you're trying too hard."   
  
"That's what she said," I mutter.   
  
"You're killing yourself to get through this list and you're not listening to her?" she asks incredulously.   
  
"I'm trying to give her what she wants!" I cry.   
  
"Harry," she says patiently. "What she wants is for you to be yourself. What she wants is for you to show her that what you have to offer her is what she wants. And she wants you to focus on her, not the list."   
  
"I thought that that was what I was doing."   
  
Melissa sighs and grabs a handful of popcorn.   
  
"You're giving her Super Harry. Right now, she's trying to deal with the idea that she might actually want Harry, the guy who has been her best friend. That's enough to deal with without the pressure of having to live up to Super Harry."   
  
I shake my head. "She doesn't have to live up to anything."   
  
Melissa smiles softly, "And you don't either; especially not a list. She just wants you to show her that she's important."   
  
"Then what was that list about?"   
  
"Focusing on her. And in doing that, giving her time."   
  
I'm confused.   
  
"She needs time to figure out how her best friend changed into someone she wants."   
  
I mull over this for a moment.   
  
"How do you know all this?" I demand.   
  
She grins and hands me the movie she's picked out.   
  
"You've never seen this? You learn a LOT from movies." 

*

  
  
  
"Hello?" Too many people are around, I can barely hear anything, so I walk out into the yard.   
  
"Hi, where are you? It sounds like a zoo." I could hear him smile. "Are you sure I can't use the fireplace? I hate talking on phones."  
  
"I'm at little Petey's house."   
  
"Oookay."   
  
"He's the kid I grew up with, lived next door. Except now little Petey's getting married and moving to the States. And he's a muggle, so I don't think he'd appreciate you bursting out of his fireplace."   
  
"Is your mom parading you around?"   
  
"Just a little." I chuckle.   
  
"I had pizza last night, half of a slice is still on a plate in the living room and I haven't taken the box down to recycling yet. There are butterbeer bottles all over the sofa."   
  
"You wild man, you!"   
  
"I've been thinking, maybe I should try being normal for the next little while. Or whatever normal is for me."   
  
"So, I get to live with a slob who can't cook again?"   
  
"I don't know, I make a mean omelet." He laughs.  
  
"My gastrointestinal system would tend to agree with you."   
  
"Hey!"   
  
It's cold outside, and I'm shivering, looking through the sliding doors longingly. My mom is motioning wildly for me to come in. I'll probably get the pneumonia speech from her.   
  
"Are you coming home tonight?" he asks hopefully.  
  
"Yeah, around 7."   
  
"I have some corporate shmooze fest to attend in the evening. I don't think I can get out of it." He pouts.  
  
"That's fine. No big deal."   
  
"Okay."   
  
I make a quick excuse, then head back inside.   
  
"She was on the phone with her boyfriend." My mom informs little Petey, who gives me the third degree.   
  
"I don't have a boyfriend."   
  
"She does." My mom says, trying to be hush hush about it. I roll my eyes.  
  
"So, are you going to tell me who he is or do I have to beg?"   
  
"Ask me the next time you see me, how about that?"   
  
"Deal."

I head next door to finish packing, and he calls after me. "And Hermione? I know what you're making money now, with your new magazine or whatever, so the wedding gift better be a reflection of that."   
  
"You're getting a blender." I wink.  
  
"Well, so long as it's a deluxe one."   
  
"Of course." 

. . . .

  
  
  
"Why don't you ease up on him?" Mom asks me while I get ready to apparate to my and Harry's front door..   
  
"I just wanted to be like those other girls." I sound like such a whiny teenager, and she looks at me like I've just spoken to her in Korean.   
  
"Why on earth would you want that?"   
  
"Because. He just liked them, not because he was on some kind of stupid quest, he just liked them for who they are."   
  
"You're not them."   
  
"Obviously."   
  
"And that's a good thing."   
  
"Is it?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
I shrug and tell her I have to get going. 

She hugs me. "I miss you, I can't wait for Christmas."   
  
"Me too." I smile at her.   
  
"Call me in a few days so I can tell you I told you so? Because I know for a fact that I'm right."   
  
I drop my head a little so that my hair falls over my face, concealing the smile tugging at my lips, but she can see it. 

*

  
  
  
I'm sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I don't want to seem too eager to work through that list (which I've now folded and tucked away in the top drawer of my dresser). On the other, I don't want it to seem like things are back to normal, whatever normal was. I don't want us to go back to being friends. I don't want to lose her friendship, but I can't go back either.   
  
I pick up after myself enough that she won't come home to a disaster and then I go downtown, willing myself to focus on something other than Hermione. I still have a job to do.   
  
When I get home, I hear the TV on in the living room and wander in to find Hermione watching the news.   
  
"Hi."   
  
"Hi," she smiles at me. "How was work?"   
  
"Work," I shrug.   
  
She nods.   
  
"How was your night?"   
  
"Bored to pieces." She makes a face.   
  
"As long as you arrived in one piece."   
  
"I'm here."   
  
"Good."   
  
I stand in the doorway and feel awkward, not sure of what to say or do.   
  
"I'm going to go take a shower," I tell her and she nods.   
  
"Okay."   
  
"Are you hungry?" she calls after me. "I can make something."   
  
"Whatever," I call back and make my escape. 

. . . .

  
  
  
She's made some kind of stir-fry and when I get downstairs, she hands me a plate and motions for me to take some.   
  
"How was home?" I ask her.   
  
"Good," she smiles. "How was your date with Melissa?"   
  
"It wasn't a date."   
  
"I know," she laughs. "I saw her with Jonathan a little while ago and they seemed happy, so I'm guessing that you weren't some kind of a homewrecker."   
  
I stick out my tongue in reply and follow her into the dining room where we sit across from each other at the table.   
  
"We got a few owls," she tells me and shoves a pile of it toward me.   
  
"Bills?"   
  
"No," she laughs. "I think your agency forwarded some of your fan mail or something."   
  
"Great."   
  
"Should be interesting bedtime reading," she comments, taking a bite of her food.   
  
"Yes, I can just imagine," I roll my eyes. "'Harry, will you marry me?'"   
  
She snorts, "More like: 'Harry, can you take me to my Yule ball?'"   
  
"Oh, God." I groan.   
  
"May I?" she asks, reaching for a letter.   
  
"Be my guest."   
  
She opens it and begins to read aloud.   
  
"My dearest Harry," she reads. "I am your biggest fan ever! You are so adorable and so good and innocent. I read that you thought that it would be better to not lose your virginity until you were married." She stops and gives me a look and I blush.   
  
She goes on, "I wanted to let you know that I think that's a very brave decision for you to make and you are a really big role-model for a lot of people. Stay true to yourself. You are a hero in so many ways."   
  
Hermione looks up from the paper.   
  
"I knew those words would come back to haunt me," I groan.   
  
"You didn't mean them?" she asks innocently.   
  
I laugh. "It seemed like the right thing to say. How do you answer the question 'So have you done it?' in front of the whole country? I couldn't tell the Prophet that I've slept with someone just the night before!"  
  
Her face goes painfully neutral. I feel like banging my head on the upright fork. "You should've told them it depends on your mood." She tries to give a feeble joke.   
  
"It depends on the person," I answer quietly.   
  
She's thinking. "Harry, what would happen if people knew that we almost did something in our kitchen?"   
  
"Who's to know?" I ask.   
  
"You know what I mean."   
  
"It doesn't matter," I shake my head. "This is about us, not them."   
  
"Yeah, but…" she pauses.   
  
"What?"   
  
"Doesn't it make you seem sort of…"   
  
"Like a self-righteous liar?" I guess and shrug, "Maybe."   
  
"I thought your image was important. Your fans. . ."   
  
"It is, but you're more important."   
  
"Oh," she blushes. "Yeah, okay. But still…"   
  
"Hermione, I'm not a child. I'm a man and I can't help that I want you."   
  
Her cheeks are even redder now.   
  
"I know I've had sex before." I say earnestly. "But if you're in love with somebody, that changes things."   
  
Open mouth, insert foot.   
  
She stares at me for a moment and then drops the letter back on the pile.   
  
Neither of us knows what to say. I haven't said that I love her in so many words, but it's pretty clear to both of us that I wanted more in the kitchen the other day. One plus one does not equal three.   
  
"My food is cold," she says and jumps up from the table to return to the kitchen. 

*

  
  
  
This is the problem with having hypothetical discussions - you can never be sure of exactly what the other person meant.   
  
I did the heating charm. So, the food wasn't exactly cold, but it felt that way.   
  
He could have been hypothetically musing about say, one day, finding somebody whom he fell madly in love with, enough to come to the conclusion that the way he feels is fine and it's healthy and normal and he's not going to feel guilty about it. He didn't have to be talking about me. He technically also could have been talking in the present tense and referring to me.   
  
I don't have much time to mull it over, because he walks into the kitchen and hops up onto the counter. He's kind of kicking his feet in the air nervously as I try to look busy with my wand.   
  
"Why don't we forget for a minute what I said?"   
  
I look at him sideways, and he's visibly jittery. If I did forget about this, maybe I'd relieve some of that discomfort, but somehow I doubt it.   
  
"Were we having a hypothetical conversation, Harry?"   
  
"I'm not sure what you mean."   
  
"When you said...what you said, about love changing what sex was. . .were you speaking generally or. . .I mean, when you said it depends on the person. . .?"   
  
"Honestly? I'm not really sure."   
  
"Okay, fair enough."   
  
The food is done, and I put away my wand, but don't head back to the dining room. He grabs my wrist and gently pulls me over to stand in front of him. His legs are spread apart, dangling, leaving just enough room for me to fit between them comfortably. I don't know if I'm up for an emotionally charged moment, and I look up to inform him as much, but he hasn't got that intense look in his eye, so I know that he knows there are upper and outer limits to what is appropriate and when.   
  
His arms wrap around my waist and he pulls me in for an odd hug - it's more him leaning against me than anything, and I know he's looking for reassurance that I'm not about to flip out and pack my bags because of his potentially hypothetical pronouncement.   
  
"I like this. I like being with you."   
  
My arms snake around his back. "I like this too." I want to enjoy the moment and not think of the ramifications of it or what it would mean if he and I should ever get together as a couple through and through.   
  
"I think maybe I'm sure." His hot breath puffs against my neck.   
  
"About what?"   
  
"That it wasn't so much hypothetical. Or that I'm really quickly getting to that point."   
  
I shift my face against his neck and kiss his jaw. It's late in the evening and the stubble rasps against my lips.   
  
"Remember you asked me what I wanted for my birthday? How about a date?"   
  
"Mrs. Weasley is coming over. She misses us and she is going to go check on the twins anyway."   
  
"Is that a no?"   
  
It takes me only a minute to figure it out. "No."   
  
"So, that's a yes?"   
  
"I'd like that. . .."   
  
"We can still go out before they gets here, right?"   
  
I laugh a little. "One day at a time."   
  
"Your food's getting cold again."   
  
I like this awkward pose we're in. It suits us and I'm in no hurry to move. "I'm not that hungry anyway." 

*

  
  
  
Now I wish I hadn't invited Mrs. Weasley to come out here for my birthday. Or that she had invited herself. Whichever.   
  
Hermione pulls back from me and smiles.   
  
"I'm tired. I'm going to go up to bed."   
  
"Oh?"   
  
She laughs. "It wasn't an invitation."   
  
"One can dream..."   
  
"Goodnight, Harry."   
  
She starts to move away and I grab her hand.   
  
"What?"   
  
I lean in and touch her lips with mine softly, not asking for more.   
  
"I just wanted to kiss you goodnight."   
  
She smiles and heads for the stairs.   
  
It's a long time before I jump off the counter and follow.   
  
. . . .   
  
  
My room is a disaster area. It's the one concession I didn't make to that list. I carefully walk along the path I've made on the floor and collapse face first on my bed.   
  
I'm not quite sure why, but I feel rattled by her sudden openness with me. It's not like she has suddenly agreed that we should see where this goes, but she's not pulling away either.   
  
Quite frankly, I wasn't prepared for this and I don't know exactly what I want to do with it.   
  
I groan inwardly, chastizing myself for having these thoughts at all. It's not about the thrill of the chase with Hermione, I remind myself. I still want her.   
  
I just didn't expect this to actually happen. I didn't think she'd agree to this at all, even one day at a time.   
  
Looming ahead too, is the prospect of having Mrs. Weasley, mother, come out here. I know that as soon as she gets here and takes on look at my face, she'll know what the deal is. And then there will be all these not-so-subtle hints about the inappropriateness of our living arrangements.   
  
I sigh and turn over, burying my head beneath the pillow.   
  
It muffles the sound of the knock on my door, but not enough that I miss it entirely.   
  
I remove the pillow.   
  
"Harry?"   
  
"Come in," I tell her and sit up in bed. "I thought you would've been asleep by now" I say as she opens the door.   
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"Couldn't sleep?"   
  
"No."   
  
I nod.   
  
"Remember when I used to do this? When I had something on my mind and I couldn't sleep? I just walk into yours or Ron's room and babble? And Ron would groan or something?"   
  
I nod again.   
  
"The thing is, I don't know if I can do that anymore with you, and I miss it."   
  
I sigh, "Hermy, we're still the same. We can still talk to each other. You can still come and sit with me."   
  
She shakes her head, "I don't think so."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
She smiles wistfully. "Because you're what's on my mind?"   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Yeah," she laughs to herself. "I don't know what to do with that. And I can't moan to Ron, because he's not here yet. And Lavender's probably asleep by now."   
  
"You could stop fighting it," I suggest.   
  
She looks at me slowly. "And then what?"   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"What happens to us, Harry?"   
  
"I don't know, Hermione. What do you want to happen?"   
  
She sighs and sits on the end of the bed.   
  
"I don't know."   
  
"People don't go into relationships knowing the outcome."   
  
"I just want to know that I won't hate you."   
  
"I hope not," I laugh.   
  
"Are you friends with your exes?" she asks. "I'm not. Oh, there are a few, but they were mostly casual relationships."   
  
"Yeah, for the most part, I am."   
  
"I don't think we would be," she says quietly.   
  
"Why not?"   
  
"Because I couldn't be with you if I didn't mean it. Could you?"   
  
It's a loaded question and I know what she's really asking.   
  
"I think you know the answer to that," I say.   
  
"Tell me anyway."   
  
I sigh.   
  
"Hermione, you mean so much to me. You know that. You know that neither one of us would've been able to put up with the things we've had to since we were eleven if we didn't have each other. I don't take you for granted. So the answer to your question is, no, I wouldn't be pursuing this if I didn't mean it."   
  
It's not about the thrill of the chase.   
  
"Then I want to do this right."   
  
I give her a perplexed look.   
  
"Slowly, Harry. No more groping in the kitchen. At least for the time being."   
  
"What, do you want me to court you or something?"   
  
She laughs. "Court? You really did spend a lot of time with Mrs. Weasley."   
  
"Shut up," I laugh. "So this means you will go on that date with me?"   
  
She nods and stands up.   
  
"Where are you going?"   
  
"To my room."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"To sleep."   
  
"Stay."   
  
She shakes her head. "I can't, Harry. It's one way or the other. You can't have both."   
  
"Are you sure?" I wink.   
  
She shakes her head, laughing and steps carefully back to the door.   
  
"Goodnight Hermione."   
  
"Goodnight. Oh, Harry?"   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
"If I was to stay, I would expect that it would be a little cleaner in here." She winks.  
  
I make a mental note of that and close my eyes. 


	11. Mrs Weasley

A couple of days pass by, he's sent on a flurry of promotional activities, as one last push before the beginning of the Quidditch season. We do make it out for a quick dinner one night, but we're both too tired to actually have it be anything other than two people eating. Then again, we go home to our couch and lie down together on it, unintentionally, and he strokes my hair. I kiss him good night and he kisses me back and it's such a warm, pleasant way to end the day. I always liked hugging him in the past, but now it's different, it's charged and he presses himself into me. It's absolutely flattering to feel his pulse speed up and his hips make contact with mine.  
  
My newly hired editors tell me they can handle things themselves so I leave early, to get home and start cleaning before Mrs. Weasley gets there the following weekend. Harry's birthday.  
  
Harry is already home, seated on the couch with his hands at his temples. His team manager, Sean, is standing with his arms crossed. I have a feeling he had said something Harry didn't like. Harry patted the seat at his side and I sat down.  
  
"Have you guys thought about living in a gated community?" Sean asked. "With ward charms around the property?" I look curiously at Harry.  
  
"Ummm. A mob of women tried to, well, I don't know what they were doing. But they wanted me." Harry blushed.  
  
"We already have ward charms. No one can apparate inside the house." I say.  
  
"People already know where Harry lives. They can come on foot, even if we make the house unplottable." Sean explained. "It's too late to disguise the property, they know you're here and they'll just find a way to get in."  
  
"I don't want to move." I say bluntly. Harry blushes even harder.  
  
"Do you want people congregating in your driveway?"  
  
They're not here to see me, I want to say. They're just a tiny fraction of his fans and now I'm supposed to move behind the Berlin Wall in order to maintain a secure living environment.  
  
"I don't want to move." I repeat stubbornly.  
  
He ignores me and goes on. "Also, some of the mail has been a little on the negative side. You two are seeing each other?"  
  
"Excuse me?" Harry jumps in.  
  
"So that's a yes? You've been seen around town, there is speculation. The fan mail is a reflection of that."  
  
"So we went out to have dinner, what's the problem?" I just watch the conversation unfold between them.  
  
"And now you're together."  
  
"No!" He exclaims then looks back at me. "I mean, uh, what difference does it make? I always got some funny mail anyway."  
  
"Well, combined with the fact some of them know where you live and I'm not sure it's worthwhile to take any chances. I'm sure Hermione would agree."  
  
I want to say that I'm not moving, but saying it three times within the span of 5 minutes might be seen as terribly repetitive. I could not believe that some crazy fans were making me move. And what is it with him denying me?  
  
"Maybe we can sit down and talk about this more if there are more problems. I'm not moving right now, it seems very rash." I reason and they agree with me, so that I'm released and can go work cleaning upstairs. I had discovered a boggart under the sink earlier, and I wanted to get rid of it.  
  
Twenty minutes later, the front door opens and closes and Harry makes his way upstairs. I'm getting ready to vanquish the boggart who had taken up residence in our bathroom  
  
"Do you want to stay in? We can watch a movie, just sit back and relax."  
  
"I thought you wanted to go out to that Thai place."  
  
"Yeah, well, maybe we can lounge around here. Plenty of things to occupy our minds."  
  
I don't really like the direction of this, but I give him leeway because I know he must have been pretty freaked out over the incident earlier and I can't blame him for wanting to avoid it. I take a deep breath and open the cabinet. The boggart bounds out, in the form of Harry with an ugly contemptuous sneer upon his face.  
  
"Riddikulus!" I cry immediately, before the boggart did what I knew it would do. Harry stared.  
  
"What was - "  
  
"Sure, that sounds fine."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Staying home." I say.  
  
Harry is still gaping at the space where the boggart stood. The boggart that took his form. I could tell he wanted me to explain why it was him, but I had no intention of revealing to Harry that my greatest fear was in fact, him rejecting and leaving me. Harry made several noises as if he were about to ask, but then I guess it clicks in his brain.  
  
"Hermione, I would never - "  
  
"Harry, I really need to get this place cleaned up. You could try and help, you know."  
  
He accepts my change in subject, his face flushed.  
  
"I was thinking, mom will be here in a couple of days and I haven't told her anything."  
  
I use a spell to get the dirt out from between the tiles and I avoid his eyes..  
  
"About us?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"And what? You want my permission?"  
  
"Actually, I was thinking maybe we shouldn't say anything to her. She'll lecture us and she'll assume that there is something here that isn't there."  
  
"Like what, Harry?" Wow, is it just me or is he trying to put me in storage for the next little while? I don't really appreciate that.  
  
"You know, cohabiting and all."  
  
"Fine, don't say a word to her." I say, and it's a little on the snappish side.  
  
"I just think that we'd avoid a scene."  
  
"Great."  
  
"She's only here for a few days."  
  
"Right."  
  
*  
  
I stand at the fireplace and call up the stairs.  
  
"Hermione! She'll be here in a sec. You coming?"  
  
After a moment, she appears at the top of the stairs.  
  
"You should go yourself."  
  
"Come on. You're as much her child as I am. She is looking forward to seeing you."  
  
"She'll see me soon enough. You should have some time with her."  
  
"Is this about the other day?" I ask carefully. I recalled vividly the boggart. And how I basically asked that I keep her in a closet until mother leaves. I spent the night mentally cursing myself for my stupidity.  
  
"What about it?" she shrugs.  
  
"Are you upset with me because I don't want to tell mother about us?"  
  
She shakes her head. "No."  
  
"Good," I breathe a sigh of relief.  
  
"There's nothing to tell, is there?" she asks and disappears down the hall.  
  
"Hermione, come on!" I call after her and mount the stairs two at a time. "You can't really expect me to tell my mother about how close we've become?"  
  
"I wouldn't want you to tell her something that isn't true."  
  
"Wait, so because I don't feel ready to discuss my love life with her, what, we just stop? She thinks of me as her son, and you as her daughter. Don't you think that would be a little weird to tell her?"  
  
"I'm just saying that there's nothing to tell her," she reasons, standing in the doorway of her room.  
  
"I don't think that's true," I respond.  
  
"Evidentally, it's not important enough to tell her about."  
  
"That's not what it is, Hermione!"  
  
She motions for me to move out of the doorway.  
  
"Go greet Mrs. Weasley, Harry. I have things to do."  
  
"I wish you'd come with me."  
  
"Believe me, you don't."  
  
She shuts the door.  
  
. . . .  
  
There is a cloud of smoke, then Mrs. Weasley steps out of our fireplace.  
  
"Mom!" I call and she looks up and grins.  
  
"Harry!"  
  
I engulf my mother in a hug and reach for her suitcase.  
  
"Where's Hermione?" she asks immediately.  
  
"Oh, she's sick," I say as nonchalantly as possible.  
  
She raises her eyebrows but doesn't comment.  
  
I lead her out to the well decorated hallway and she makes some remark about me being careful with my money that I choose to ignore and I show her up the stairs.  
  
I open the room she would be staying in.  
  
"I'm sorry Hermione didn't come see me."  
  
"She's really really sick," I say by way of explanation.  
  
"We can't go see her?"  
  
"Ma, she's asleep, okay?" I say, probably a bit too harshly.  
  
Her mouth tightens into a small line.  
  
"There's no need to take that tone with me." She says quietly.  
  
I sigh, "I'm sorry."  
  
"Are you and Hermione having problems?" she asks.  
  
"What kind of problems would we be having?" I sigh.  
  
She shrugs, "It's hard living with somebody else, you know. Especially someone of the opposite sex."  
  
"What does that have to do with anything?" I demand.  
  
"There's bound to be some questions that arise," she says sagely.  
  
"We're fine," I say.  
  
Mom nods but her eyes betray her disbelief and I sigh again, annoyed.  
  
"What?" she asks.  
  
"How can you presume to know so much about Hermione and I when you haven't seen the way we are together?" I ask. "And don't say something trite like 'A mother knows these things', please."  
  
"I wasn't going to say that," she retorts. "And you mind who you're speaking to, please."  
  
"Sorry." I know I was being unnecessarily harsh. I was downright disrespectful and childish. But what Hermione said had bothered me, and I had to take out my confused feelings on someone.  
  
"It's not being a mother that makes me know this, Harry. It's being a woman." She looks over at me and laughs. "What, you didn't consider me as such? I am, you know, even if I am your mother-figure. And I know what it is to live with somebody of the opposite sex."  
  
I shake my head without responding.  
  
"What makes you think there's any of that?" I ask.  
  
My mother shakes her head.  
  
"You didn't look at any other girls the way that you look at Hermione."  
  
"And how is that?" I inquire.  
  
"In a way that I noticed. In such a way that I had to speak to the two of you about your behaviours last time I saw you both together." I know she was referring to our shameless flirting I got her to partake in before the reporters.  
  
"That was a joke, Mom."  
  
She shakes her head again as I stand in the doorway uncomfortably.  
  
"These things always have some basis in reality."  
  
I don't say anything.  
  
"Hermione!" she calls suddenly. "I don't care what you're busy with, get in here and give me a big hug this instant!"  
  
In a moment, she walks past my into the room.  
  
"Hi, Mrs. Weasley." she smiles and embraces her.  
  
"Hello, dear." Mother holds her tightly with a gentle smile, then pulls back and holds her at arms length, scrutinizing her carefully. The gentle, motherly smile changes into a knowing, almost amused, grin.  
  
"I thought so," she nods.  
  
*  
  
She's looking at me oddly. I think they must have had a conversation about me, which leaves me in the precarious position of being the odd man out.  
  
"I had to finish cleaning a little so the place looks presentable." I lie blatantly.  
  
"Oh, you shouldn't have worried about it so much. It's your home, after all, not a museum."  
  
I smile at her and glance at Harry, who is battling with trying to fit a suitcase into the closet.  
  
"If you need extra blankets, let me know. Harry likes to keep this place cold at night and it can get pretty freezing sometimes."  
  
Mrs. Weasley nods and smiles.  
  
"I'm going to grab a shower, you know what it's like to sit in one place for hours on end. Then we can go to dinner."  
  
She walks over to her suitcase and unzips it, looking for a change of clothing.  
  
"Actually, Mrs. Weasley, you and Harry should catch up...You're here for a few days, I can get together with you guys anytime."  
  
"Are you busy tonight? Oh, do you need to report to St. Mungo's to have your appendix taken out?" She asks.  
  
"Uh, no."  
  
"Then come along with us."  
  
"Alright." I tried, but I had a feeling she'd shoot the idea down.  
  
Harry and I leave her and head downstairs. He walks out the door first, and I keep at a safe distance, aware of him at all times and even more aware of her eyes on us.  
  
"She gave me the third degree." He explains once we hit the bottom of the stairs.  
  
"And what did you tell her?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Terrific."  
  
"I don't get you, Hermione. You said one day at a time, but now you expect me to tell my mother, who we both know has a particular view of what is and isn't appropriate behaviour, that I'm attracted beyond belief to my roommate, best friend for life, who also happens to be a sexy woman?"  
  
"You never thought about any of this, Harry. Just that stupid list and chasing me around like a chicken whose head has been cut off. Then you get to where you wanted to be and what? You're bored of it? You don't want to deal with your mother? You don't want to deal with your fans hating it? You don't want to deal with me in public?"  
  
"I'm not bored of you." He insists.  
  
"And those other things?"  
  
"Yeah, maybe you're right there are a lot of variables, but that doesn't change what I still want and always wanted."  
  
"Just not for the next 4 days?"  
  
"Have you told anyone?" He shoots back.  
  
"No, which kind of works out well now, huh? Since I don't have to backtrack and all."  
  
We're standing across from each other. I'm annoyed that he'd pursue me so diligently and then the instant I give him a tentative yes, he's shitting his pants over what it really means for him to be involved with me that way. I'm also hurt that he's got such a fair weather attitude about this - it's alright to kiss me goodnight in the dark so long as he keeps his hands to himself when mommy is around. He seems pissed off that I'm now back to denying we have anything at all, but worse yet, he looks like he knows that the things I've said to him today are all true, at least partially.  
  
Mrs. Weasley makes it downstairs and we head into the kitchen to get her a drink. She tells us about Mr. Weasley and Charlie and Bill. We live near Ron's home, Ginny writes us frequently, and the twins live over their jokeshop in Diagon Alley, so Mrs. Weasley didn't need to catch us up on them. Then asks to meet the infamous Melissa. Neither of us is chatty and she notices.  
  
"Please, don't be civil to one another on my behalf." She says and takes her tea out to the deck.  
  
* 


	12. Living In a Closet

A/N: Happy Holidays to you all! I think I can squeeze in one more update on Christmas…I'll try.

What does she want from me?   
  
She knows my mother, she knows how she'd take this. It wouldn't be pretty.   
  
Now they're sitting together on the deck, laughing about something and I've escaped to the kitchen to add some sugar to my mother's glass.   
  
I don't want to go back out there. I want to go to dinner with the two of them even less.   
  
Mom looks over her shoulder at me and I busy myself with the teaspoon.   
  
"Are okay in there?" she calls and I reluctantly carry the glass back to her and sit across from the two of them at the patio table.   
  
Hermione looks away from me and instead consults her watch.   
  
"What time were the reservations?" she asks my mom, even though I'm the one who made them.   
  
"Seven, I think," Mom says, looking to me for confirmation.   
  
I nod mutely.   
  
"We should get going. Can't be late."   
  
"That's why I made reservations," I say. "They'll hold our table."   
  
"I'd rather be early," she snaps and when my mom looks at her she apologizes to her.   
  
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley. I'm going to go get ready. Finish your drink." She smiles at her and steps through the patio doors and disappears.   
  
Mom looks over at me.   
  
"Okay."   
  
"Okay what?"   
  
"You tell me."   
  
I shake my head. "There's nothing to tell, Mom."   
  
"It doesn't seem that way to me," she says. "For best friends, the two of you don't seem particularly friendly."   
  
"Ron's my best friend," I say defiantly. But it was true. Hermione isn't my best friend anymore. I hope she was still much more than that.   
  
"You're splitting hairs," she says and sips her drink.   
  
I shrug this off as some cryptic motherly comment.  
  
"Okay, if you aren't best friends, you're still friends. Unless that's what this is about."   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"I don't have the answers here, Harry. I was hoping you did."   
  
"No," I say honestly. "I don't."   
  
"All I know is that there is some kind of tension between the two of you. Is this how either of you want to live?"   
  
No. What I want, I can't have.   
  
Mom is watching me closely.   
  
"You know I'm going to find out what this is about, so why don't you just tell me?"   
  
I sigh, "Mom, for the hundredth time, there is nothing to tell!"   
  
She shakes her head. "I guess I'll just have to get it out of Hermione."   
  
Good luck with that, I think. I can't get a straight answer out of her myself. 

. . . . 

  
  
  
It comes as no surprise that dinner is as awkward as the earlier part of the day and by the time our waiter conjures up our bill, we're all sitting quietly.   
  
I reach for the bill at the same time that Hermione does and we both snatch our hands back as though we've been burned.   
  
I know my mother has made note of this and I avoid her eyes.   
  
Instead, she takes the bill and opens her purse.   
  
"No, Mom." I try to take the bill back from her but she holds tightly to it.   
  
"I have it," she tells me.   
  
"Mom, it's an expensive restaurant."   
  
"I read the menu, Harry." 

"I can afford it," I say reasonably.   
  
"I want to, for your birthday," she says.   
  
"It's too much, Mom."   
  
"Harry, don't argue," Hermione says and it's the first time she's spoken to me all evening.   
  
Mom smiles at her appreciatively.   
  
"Good to know some people haven't lost their respect for their elders," Mom says.   
  
I roll my eyes at this.   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot my place, Harry." Hermione says very deliberately.   
  
"I'm beginning to feel quite like a mushroom," Mom says quietly.   
  
We both turn to her.   
  
"You know, in the dark?"   
  
Hermione studies her napkin and I reluctantly let go of my hold on the receipt.   
  
"Do I have to guess?" Mom continues.   
  
"Please don't." Hermione says softly.   
  
"Then one of you had better speak up."   
  
"I'm just tired, Mrs. Weasley. I'm busy with my magazine and Harry's got a million things going on with the Quidditch season starting soon and we haven't really had time to adjust to living together. It's nothing, really."   
  
"So it's about dividing the chores, huh?" I can hear the sarcasm and doubt in my mother's voice and when I sneak a glance a Hermione, I know she is aware of it as well.   
  
"Yes," she tries to assure her. "That's all it is."   
  
Mom still looks doubtful but doesn't pursue it. Instead, she motions for the waiter and the nice old wizard takes away the bill folder, now full of Galleons.   
  
"I'm just going to use the ladies room," she excuses herself and pushes away from the table. "You two try not to kill each other in this lovely, overpriced restaurant while I'm away." She walks away from us and I wait a minute before I speak.   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"For what?" she asks.   
  
"For not saying anything."   
  
She nods and looks away.   
  
And I wonder if she was right. I wonder if there really is nothing to say. 

*

  
  
  
Okay, I never meant for things to be this awkward. Not only am I embarrassed to be acting like a child in front of Mrs. Weasley, but there is no way she bought that crap about the chores. No way. First, because she knows that Harry can neither clean nor cook, so that's obviously in my hands and second, because we'd both have to be real idiots to basically refuse to speak to one another over a couple of dirty plates in the sink.   
  
"Do you have a busy day tomorrow?" She asks on the way home.   
  
"No, I have the weekend off." Harry's actual birthday is on Sunday, and so most everybody is off work. Needless to say, this isn't how I expected to be spending them.   
  
"Wonderful, you both deserve some rest."   
  
We smile at her politely.   
  
Harry seems even more uncomfortable around his mother than I am, so I figure they must have exchanged some words and he's trying to avoid doing that again. He asks if it would be okay to go shower first and then runs upstairs, leaving the two of us in the living room.   
  
"I don't know what has gotten into him." She shakes her head.   
  
I don't answer, but ask more about her other Mr. Weasley and Bill, Charlie, and Percy and she easily launches into a half a dozen stories. I feel rude that a good 80% of what she's saying to me is going in one ear and out the other. I can't concentrate.   
  
We're out on the deck and I hear movement next door, and spring up to call Melissa over and introduce her.   
  
"Oh, hi!" She says happily after they've shaken hands. "I'm sorry I didn't come and say hello earlier, I'm buried in coursework right now so I lost track of time." 

Mrs. Weasley's eyes brighten when Melissa mentions she's a squib, and she launches into how much Mr. Weasley loves working with muggle things.  
  
They chat for a while and soon I see Harry through the sliding doors, walking around in his checkered pyjama pants and t-shirt. He swings his head around and spots us. He makes an attempt to step outside, but Mrs. Weasley sees his state of undress, as she calls it and tells him it's rude to be walking around like a bum when we've got guests.   
  
"Melissa isn't a guest. She's just talking over a fence." He points out, but it's a lost cause.   
  
"Nevermind that." She ushers him back inside the house, then says goodnight to Melissa and tells us she's going to unpack a little.   
  
"I hate living out of a suitcase" is her explanation, although I think she's trying to give Harry and I some time alone, which is pointless since we're not going to make good use of it. 

*

  
  
  
I turn the TV on and decide on Rock and Roll Jeopardy only because we both stink equally at it. I'm always in awe of these people who show up and usually can't sing and don't even try and don't have a record and can't play, but they love music so much that it pours out of their every pore. They know every muggle band, every story, every sale statistic, and I often wonder if these are the people who truly understand music.   
  
They're on the "Music and Politics" category and we're a total loss. I identify Public Enemy, only because of my graphic artist's teenage son who is rebelling by listening to muggle rock to his parents distaste, but neither of us would be able to pick Rage Against the Machine out of a Azkaban lineup if our lives depended on it.   
  
"Hermione?" He finally utters a word during the commercial break.   
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"Uh, nothing."   
  
"Just spit it out, you'll feel better."   
  
He turns his body to face mine on the couch. "What do we do?"   
  
"About what?" I look at him. "Us?"   
  
He nods.   
  
"What do you want to do?" I ask him.   
  
"Something."   
  
"Have you thought about forgetting it? Call it temporary insanity, put it away and we'll laugh about it in 5 years?"   
  
"Is that what you want?" He asks, picking lint off the couch.   
  
"It's an option."   
  
"I don't really like it."   
  
"The thing is, Harry, we don't seem to be in the same place right now. Yeah, I was upset at first at the way you were acting, but I really do understand your reluctance, and it's fine. It's better to find out about it sooner rather than later. At the same time, I don't want to live in your closet, so maybe it's not the best time."   
  
He lifts his finger up and tells me to wait here for a minute, then runs upstairs to his room.   
  
He comes back with the list. "You are a total chicken when it comes to trying anything new." He reads from it.   
  
I sigh.   
  
"When I first read it, I thought that it was the most ridiculous reason you'd come up with." He folds the paper in two. "Sad thing is, it might be the only one I can't prove you wrong on."   
  
"Well then I guess you have your answer about what you want to do about us."   
  
I get up and go up to my room. The bathroom is clear and I take advantage of it, spending more time in there than I usually do. As I'm walking back to my room, the house is very quiet. There is some light coming out from underneath the guest room door, so Mrs. Weasley is probably reading. I want to be hospitable, so I knock and she yells to come on in.   
  
"I just wanted to say goodnight."   
  
"Oh, that's very nice of you, dear."   
  
"So, I'll see you in the morning." I smile at her and my hand is already on the doorknob when she sits up.   
  
"Something's happened, hasn't it?"   
  
I shake my head. "I'm not sure what you mean."   
  
"I wasn't born yesterday."   
  
"Mrs. Weasley, nothing is going on, honestly."   
  
"If you say so."   
  
I'm glad to make it out of there alive, and I only had to lie to her a little. My room is right next to hers, and that's where I find him sitting on my bed in the dark. 

*

  
  
  
"I don't want to forget about it."   
  
"What do you want me to say to that?" she asks, speaking in a whisper and closing the door behind her.   
  
"That you don't either?"   
  
"We're talking about you. You're the one who chased me and the minute I started to acquiesce a little bit, you ran away with your tail between your legs."   
  
"That's not true!"   
  
"It's late, Harry."   
  
"It's always late," I argue. "I can't keep living like this, Hermione."   
  
She lights a candle and the room is filled with a soft glow.   
  
"You know what your options are."   
  
"I didn't think that you were giving me any."   
  
"Don't."   
  
"What?"   
  
"Don't put this on me, Harry."   
  
"You're the one calling the shots," I retort.   
  
"You asked the question," she reminds me.   
  
"Tell me you weren't wondering."   
  
"I wasn't."   
  
"Bullshit."   
  
A heavy silence fills the room.   
  
"You'd better go wash your mouth out with soap" she says quietly.   
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" I demand.   
  
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe if you weren't trying so hard to keep that halo from slipping in front of your mother…?"   
  
"What do you think she'd say, Hermione? Why didn't you tell her when she asked you, more than once tonight?"   
  
"It's not for me to tell," she says defiantly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.   
  
"You live here."   
  
"You're her son."   
  
"You are too," I shoot back. "Well, not son. . .but, you know - "  
  
"We're getting nowhere with this, Harry. Just forget it." She turns towards the door to open it.   
  
"No."   
  
Her head whips around. "No?"   
  
"No."   
  
"It's not up for debate, Harry."   
  
"I know." I move until I'm pressed against her and the weight of our bodies swings the door shut. My hands grasp at her waist and my lips descend onto hers, roughly pressing against her.   
  
"Harry…" she struggles against me and I pull back, my eyes boring into hers.   
  
"I can't."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"I don't want to be your secret."   
  
"I'll be yours," I whisper.   
  
She shakes her head. "No, Harry."   
  
"Do you want me to march in there right now and tell her that I want you?" I slide my hands along her ribcage and trace the swell of her breasts.   
  
"Yes. No. I…"   
  
My mouth settles on hers again, this time less forcefully, more hesitantly.   
  
"She's right in the next room, Harry," she says, breaking the kiss.   
  
"And?"   
  
"And you don't want to tell her using words. How do you think she'd react if she heard us?"   
  
"I can be quiet." My attentions refocus on her neck and I nibble along it, down to her collarbone, breathing in her scent.   
  
"I can't be with you like this, Harry."   
  
"You want to, don't you?"   
  
She sighs as my mouth descends on a particularly sensitive part of her skin and her arms circle my waist and she moves the two of us so that now my back is to the door and she is pressing me against the wood.   
  
Her breath comes hot against my ear, "It doesn't matter what I want. I can't be something you take out and play with whenever it suits you."   
  
Her hand twists the doorknob and before I know it, I'm standing on the other side of the door and the latch catches firmly as it closes. 


	13. Spinning

A/N: Here ya go, Happy Christmas.  Oh, and some new readers are mentioning the POV thing again.  I write it that way on purpose, because I think it makes you closer to the characters.  It makes you feel what both of them are feeling…and how similar their feelings are.  Oh and I like to torment you ;).  

It is very, very hard, if not impossible to go to bed when you're all hot and bothered. I probably came across as heartless, but the situation is messy enough that the last thing we need is a quick romp in the sack in the dead of the night and then the wrath of his mother in the morning. Not only that, but even if something did happen between us, the smart money is on him leaving before dawn, out of the confines of my bedroom and back to safety. Is it so terrible I'd want him to stay? Of course, it's very likely his mother heard my door opening and closing and opening and closing and rattling and opening and closing. She'd have to have an IQ of a toddler not to be able to put two and two together.   
  
I toss and turn for a long, long time, and wake up very early, hoping to eat breakfast before they're up and then get out of the house for a little while. 

  
"Looks like great minds think alike." His voice comes from the kitchen.  He's hunting for something edible at just barely past 6 in the morning.   
  
"Or cowards." I chuckle.   
  
"That too."   
  
"Can you pass me a yogurt?"   
  
We sit in the kitchen, on our stools, opposite each other.   
  
"Are you going out somewhere?"   
  
"I was thinking of spending some time with Lavender today."   
  
"Oh, and she'll surely be up at 6 on a Saturday morning." He snorts.   
  
"Point taken. Maybe later."   
  
We hear Mrs. Weasley walking around upstairs, and then the bathroom door closes. She's up.   
  
"I'm trying to figure it out." He nods towards the stairs.   
  
"It's not just about her, I don't want us to use the poor woman as an excuse. She's just one part of the issue."   
  
"I know, but it's a start."   
  
Sure, but I'm not getting my hopes up.   
  
"It's my birthday tomorrow."   
  
"I know. I'm picking up the cake tonight." I grin.    
  
"I kind of want my gift." He looks up, done with his cereal. "No, scratch that, I really want my gift. I want to go out with you or spend some time with you tonight. I do, and so badly."   
  
I soften. "We can do that, if you want."   
  
"So long as it's not a friends with benefits sort of thing?"   
  
I nod.   
  
"You know, Hermione, you and I, we were never really friends to begin with." He sees my surprised look. "No, what I mean is that we were never just friends, there was always something there. And now, we're balancing on a tight rope."   
  
I grab his bowl and my spoon and deposit them in the sink.   
  
"I know." I say as the water sprays against the stainless steel.   
  
"Give me a couple of hours tonight? I'll talk to her, or I'll try or whatever."   
  
"She might have heard us last night." I blush. If at least there was really something to write home about. The worst part is she might have heard and we weren't doing much of anything at all.   
  
"I figured. I want my gift." He emphasizes.   
  
"Okay. I'll get home by the afternoon."   
  
He kisses me softly, quickly, and keeps his face close. "Thanks."   
  
  


*

  
  
  
Hermione leaves early, thereby avoiding my mother as much as possible, which she, of course, notices.   
  
"You know, if I was paranoid..."   
  
"She promised a friend she'd visit."   
  
"That trampy loud girl?" she asks, screwing up her face in disgust.  "That one that Ron insisted on dating?"  
  
"They're friends, her and Lavender." I shrug.  "You wouldn't think so, since they barely spoke at Hogwarts."   
  
"A nice young lady like Hermione should choose her friends more carefully," she says, settling into the sofa.   
  
"You think highly of Hermione," I comment, choosing to sit across from her, out of her reach.   
  
"I love her dearly."   
  
Iobserve her closely.   
  
Mom reaches for the Daily Prophet and skims some pages.   
  
"Mom?"   
  
She looks up, "Yes, Harry?"   
  
"What if…" I stop, the words stuck in my throat.   
  
She waits for me to continue.   
  
"What if I like Hermione?"   
  
"Of course you like Hermione," she says, returning to her reading.   
  
"No, that's not what I meant."   
  
She looks up again.   
  
"I like her."   
  
She fold the paper carefully, making sure all the sections are in order and places it back on the table.   
  
"You fancy Hermione?"   
  
At least she's following.   
  
"Yeah," I nod, my mouth dry.   
  
"And what does she think about this?"   
  
"Huh?" I make a hoarse noise.  
  
"Hermione."   
  
"I'm sorry?" I try again.   
  
"What does Hermione think about your feelings for her?"   
  
"We're kind of working on that," I admit.   
  
"Have you kissed her?"   
  
At least.   
  
"Harry…" She's waiting for an answer.   
  
"Yes ma'am."   
  
"On the lips?"   
  
Someone, help me.  Please.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Is that all?"   
  
"Yes," I barely manage to utter.   
  
"Don't lie to me."   
  
"No."   
  
"What else?"   
  
"I am not discussing this with you."   
  
She gets to her feet.   
  
"Well, I knew there was something going on."   
  
"You did?"   
  
"Do I look like I just fell off a broomstick, Harry?"   
  
I shake my head.   
  
"Well," she announces. "There's really only one thing to do."   
  
"There is?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"What?"   
  
"You'll move out of this house and move into a place of your own."   
  
"What?" I'm incredulous and stare at my mother, Mrs. Weasley, like she's grown two heads.   
  
"You heard me."   
  
"No."   
  
"Harry, be reasonable. You can't live her with her if you're going to date her."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
"Because it's highly inappropriate."   
  
"Says who?"   
  
She gives me a look. I half expect her to fall on her knees and start praying for my wayward soul.   
  
"What do Hermione's parents have to say about all this?" she demands.   
  
"I don't know."   
  
"You should."   
  
"Why?" I want to know.   
  
There's that look again.   
  
"We're both adults," I reason. "We're not hurting anybody."   
  
"Except yourselves," she says.   
  
"I'm not sleeping with her, for God's sake!"  

"Harry, you may not be a red-head and I may not have given birth to you, but I consider you my son as much as Ron is.  I love you both, but you cannot live like this."

"Mo - "  
  
"So you're not going to move out?" she demands.   
  
"No."   
  
"Then Hermione will."   
  
"No, she won't!"   
  
"I'll talk to her," she decides. "She'll see reason. She's a woman."   
  
"What does that have to do with anything?"   
  
"We're not as driven by our base desires," she reasons.   
  
I snort at that, remembering Hermiones's advances.   
  
"You're not going to talk to her about this, Mom!"   
  
"Why not?" she wants to know.   
  
"Because we're adults! Consenting adults, Mom. We can make our own decisions about this."   
  
"I have to question your decision-making skills, Harry."   
  
I shake my head.   
  
"No, you don't."   
  
"Do you think I'm saying this to hurt you?"

I look her in the eye.   
  
"No.  I love you, but I'm my own person and if you don't like what I'm doing…" I pause, holding myself in check.   
  
"I can go back to The Burrow?" she guesses.   
  
I sigh, "I don't want that, but yeah."   
  
"I don't like it," she says. "But I don't want to ruin your birthday. But Harry?"   
  
"Yeah?"   
  
"It doesn't mean I approve."   
  
"I know, Mom."   
  
She sighs, "Can you two behave while I'm here, at least?"   
  
I nod, "Of course."   
  
She shakes her head and heads outside for some air.   
  
  


*

  
  
  
I wander around Diagon Alley, pay a short and amusing visit to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (they futilely attempt to turn my hair pink), and shop a little all morning, then floo to Lavender's flat. Getting her out of bed at 11 is like pulling teeth, and I have to promise her I'll pay for lunch and treat her to dinner sometime before she agrees to get dressed.   
  
"You're still coming over tomorrow for his birthday, right?" I ask her as we settle into Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor.   
  
"Wouldn't miss it. Free food, free booze - don't look at me like that - there better be booze, and I'm there."   
  
"What did you get him?"   
  
"I got him a shirt."    
  
"Seriously?" Colour me surprised.  Last present Lavender gave Harry was a box of flavoured condoms.  
  
"Yeah, I figured he'd like that.  It'll be the only shirt in his closet that isn't that god-awful green colour.  Or black."   
  
I happen to think he looks good in those two colors, but Lavender's right.  Harry does exclusively wear black and green.   
  
"So, what's your gift?"   
  
"Um, I'm not sure, exactly."   
  
"I didn't peg you as a late minute shopper." She teased.  
  
"He wants to go out." I blurt out.   
  
"Out where? On a date?" Her eyes get wider.   
  
"Something like that. Or stay in for one. I don't know what we ended up settling on."   
  
"Oh my God! You slept with him! You did!"   
  
"No! I didn't. We haven't!" My face is red and flushed now.   
  
"Are you pulling my leg? Come on, I wanna know the details."   
  
"Nothing has happened. We're not even together, it's just something to think about, that's all."   
  
"If you say so."   
  
Now that she's found out there isn't much to this story, she bores of it and launches into a tale of her hot, bronzed next door neighbour. I politely listen to her, then wonder whether world war three has broken out at home. It's more likely that he hasn't approached his mother at all, I decide.   
  


. . . .

  
  
  
I struggle with his large cake and my stuff and I can't reach the doorknob or my wand, so I have to resort to kicking at the door. Harry opens it, and I rush in.   
  
"Here, let me get that for you." He grabs the cake, in order to help me out and because he wants to see what I got.   
  
"Strawberry shortcake."   
  
"It looks great."   
  
"Great. I've got to take this stuff upstairs." I raise my arms and dangle the bags in the air.   
  
I'm lining up the shampoo and conditioner bottles in the bathroom when he comes up and corners me. He looks behind him quickly, then shuts the door. "It's just for a minute." He says.   
  
"How good can it be?" I stifle a giggle and it takes him a while to get it, but when he does, a blush spreads across his face, ear to ear.   
  
"Can I have my date, please?"   
  
"When?"   
  
"Tonight. I told her."   
  
"Why'd you close the door then?" I panic. "You know what she's going to think!"   
  
"She's out on the deck."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"I told her I liked you." He says shyly.   
  
"And?"   
  
"She thinks one of us should move out." He sees the look on my face and continues, "I told her no, in no uncertain terms."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"I can have my date then?"   
  
"Yes, you may have your date then."   
  
I decide to give him a hug because I know he probably hasn't had the most pleasant time talking to Mrs. Weasley about his love life and romantic pursuits. Also, if he gets a date, I get to touch him when I want.   
  
"I told her we'd behave while she's here." He whispers. "But the door is closed..."   
  
I know that this doesn't fit the definition of behaving while she is around, but I raise my face and my hands cup his head and bring it down until his lips are searing hot against mine. All his frustration over the last few days is evident in the kiss and I relax the hold on his head. His arms wrap around my waist and lift me up a little. I pull back and lift the corners of my mouth in a tiny smile. He kisses both of them.   
  
"I like you too." I tell him and he laughs.   
  
"A lot?"   
  
"Okay, a lot."   
  
  


*

  
  
  
Mom and Hermione are quiet during dinner, cordial, polite, but ultimately, quiet. Sometimes that can be worse than an all-out screaming match. Mom takes a slice of pizza from the box gingerly and slides it onto a plate.  It's rare that she eats muggle pizza, and she is still marveling at how "Italian" it tastes.  
  
"Harry, you didn't put out any silverware?" she asks, a hint of annoyance in her voice.   
  
"Mom, it's pizza."   
  
"That's no excuse for bad manners."   
  
Hermione stifles a chuckle and reaches for her own slice of pizza.   
  
"I'll get you some silverware, Mrs. Weasley," she tells her as she drops her slice on a plate and moves toward the drawer.   
  
Mom shakes her head, "That's fine."   
  
"It's no problem."   
  
"Hermione, sit down," she tells her and Hermione bites her lip and moves back to the table.   
  
"And you give me a hard time about being rude," I comment under my breath. She has very good hearing though, despite living for years with the constant booming of Fred and George's room, and glares at me.   
  
Okay, so she's not over it yet.   
  
We eat in a tense silence and I notice that Hermione barely picks at her food.   
  
I eat mine as quickly as possible, wanting to get this dinner over with and get us out of here.   
  
Mom has other ideas though.   
  
"Harry, take care of the dishes." she instructs me and motions for Hermione to follow her out of the kitchen.   
  
Hermione shakes her head and does as she's told.   
  
I, on the other hand, ignore my mother's instructions and tag along.   
  
"Harry..." Mom warns me.   
  
"No, anything you have to say to Hermione, you can say in front of me."   
  
"Harry."   
  
I shake my head defiantly. "She's just going to tell me what you said anyway" I reason.   
  
"Then you can hear it from her later," she shoots back.   
  
"No."   
  
Mom grimaces. "He's always been stubborn, hasn't he?"   
  
"I know he goes after what he wants," Hermione says levelly.   
  
Mom's mouth tightens.   
  
"Did you know that he leaves a drop of milk in the container and doesn't replace it?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"And that he can't for the life of him perform any cleaning charms?"   
  
"I know."   
  
"Did you know that he leaves his underwe - ?"   
  
"Mom!" I cry.  
  
"Mrs. Weasley, I know almost everything about him."   
  
"That's another worry.  What happens if this doesn't work out?"

"That won't happen.  I won't let it."  I say firmly.

   
"Of course not. But it might happen. Just like you might not plan on letting things get carried away, but you do live here together and it might happen."   
  
"It probably will," I remark and they both shoot me looks.   
  
"Mrs. Weasley," Hermione begins, taking time to choose her words carefully, "I don't know what's going to happen with Harry and I, but I care about him.  It's not like we're having an affair. We're taking this slowly. We're trying to build something."   
  
"Which is why you shouldn't be living together," Mom says.   
  
"Well, we are," I retort. I want to add 'And if you don't like it, too bad for you', but I refrain.   
  
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but we like our arrangement."   
  
"Hermione, be reasonable about this. Is this how you want to begin?"   
  
"At least I'll know what I'm getting myself into."   
  
She stiffens and turns and stalks out of the room.   
  
Hermione sighs.   
  
"I'm sorry," I apologize.   
  
She shakes her head, "It's not your fault. I wanted you to tell her."   
  
"Are you going to make it worth it?" I wink at her.   
  
"Not with Mrs. Weasley in the house," she laughs.   
  
"Then let's go."   
  
  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
"Where do you want to go?" she asks as we walk out the door.   
  
I shrug. "You're supposed to show me a good time."   
  
"At your request," she laughs.   
  
"So you didn't make any plans at all?" I pout and I catch her rolling her eyes.  "We could go Dean's club and listen to some music."   
  
"Where?" she asks.  
  
I laugh. "You are sad."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"You've lived here for months and you have no idea were Dean's club is?"   
  
She shrugs, "So?"   
  
"Have you been living under a rock?" I tease her.  She laughs.  
  
"Come on." I take her arm and lead her to Diagon Alley.  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
We end up downtown at some tiny, dimly lit bar and I reluctantly follow him inside.   
  
"Where'd you find this place?" I ask him.   
  
"Lavender told me." He laughs at my expression. "I do talk to her once in a while, you know.  She used to date Dean."  
  
"This place looks just like something Lavender would like," I comment, eyeing the buff wizards and barely dressed witches.  
  
"Now you just sound like my mother," he tells me and I close my mouth.   
  
We settle at a table near the back and Harry orders a couple of butterbeers for us. The band starts to play and I sit back in my chair and listen.   
  
After awhile, his hand finds mine beneath the table and he squeezes it.   
  
I look over at him and he smiles.   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"For what?"   
  
"For doing what I wanted to do on our date." 

"It's fun."  
  
"Well, I do have some preferred activities…" He winks at me.  
  
I shake my head, laughing.   
  
"Maybe later," I wink back.   
  
"Seriously?"   
  
I lean close to his ear.   
  
"No." I can't help but giggle.

"Tease." Harry pouts.

"Well it's hard being a neat and studious bookworm all the time." I say.  "Plus I have been around Lavender a lot. . ."

"HARRY! HERMIONE!" a large man with a tattoo of a naked woman on his bicep thunders over.  It's Dean.

"Dean!" Harry gapes.  "What the hell did you do, drink Skele-Gro for breakfast?"

He flexes his muscles proudly. "This is pure muscle, Potter."  Then he takes my other hand and kisses it softly. "Lady Granger."

"Hi Dean."

Then he notices Harry's hand around my fingers.

"WELL IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME!"  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
We don't stay out too late, first because Dean kept trying to make announcements on stage that Harry and I were an item while making suggestive winks at the two of us every three seconds, second the house will be brimming with people tomorrow and third, because I don't know how overactive his mother's imagination is, but I do think she's probably timing us at home.   
  
When we return, she's already retired to her room, and he pulls me toward the sliding doors.   
  
"Come sit with me on the deck for a while."   
  
I oblige and he sits down on a lounge chair, then pats it, asking silently for me to sit next to him. I do, and it's in the space between his legs. He lies down as much as the chair reclines, and I do the same so that I'm resting on his chest.   
  
"I don't want her to hate me." I say while he strokes my hair.   
  
"She doesn't. It's just this propriety thing and she doesn't think I'll stay in my room."   
  
"Will you?"   
  
"I guess it depends on what you want."   
  
"Do I wear the pants in this relationship?" I chuckle.   
  
"Well, when you look so good in them..."   
  
He grows serious and I can tell his body is tense as he wraps his arms around me tighter. "The first time, with my ex girlfriend, it didn't, I mean when it happened, you know, it wasn't..."   
  
"How you thought it would be?"   
  
"Yeah, that."   
  
"It's okay. It can be good or bad, just like any other thing."   
  
"My mother doesn't know. Like I'd tell her." He giggles. "But that's part of why I hated breaking up with her. It was like we'd both put in so much, we gambled and it didn't turn out for the best and in the end, we had nothing to show for it. My mom thought I was heartbroken, when I was really sulking."   
  
"Are you still friends?"   
  
"Yeah, eventually we got over it."   
  
His hands untangle from one another and he slips them beneath my shirt, resting them against my bellybutton.   
  
"Innie."   
  
"You knew that." I turn back and flash a grin at him. He kisses me and his mouth is slightly open so that this quickly becomes something deep and wet and hot. He sighs when I pull away, but the angle is really uncomfortable and my neck protests. I try to adjust it by stretching my head left to right, and he takes advantage of this to flip me over so that I'mface down on top of him.   
  
"Better now?"   
  
"Better for what?" I raise an eyebrow. He silences me pretty effectively when he slides his tongue against mine and his hands get bolder, settling on my breasts while his fingertips trace the contours of the lacy bra. I'm still wearing my jacket and it suddenly feels like a hundred degrees, so that has got to go. I sit up to get rid of it more easily and what I feel under his jeans is undeniable.   
  
"Um, not my wand?" He says sheepishly.   
  
"Not a wand." I wiggle a little.   
  
"You're pure evil, you know that?" He groans.   
  
I slide off him and stand up next to the lounge chair.   
  
"Wait, I didn't mean it!" He's quick to yell out the very second our bodies are no longer touching.   
  
I extend my hand to him so he can stand up. "We both know nothing is going to happen tonight, so you'll just be suffering if we continue to fool around."   
  
"No, I won't be." He retorts as he stands up.   
  
"Come on." I lead him through the doors and back inside.   
  
"Hermione, isn't all life suffering?"   
  
"What are you, Buddhist?" I ask over my shoulder as we go up the stairs.   
  
We stop at the landing and I give him a chaste kiss, not wanting to inflame the situation further. "Goodnight. I had a really nice night. Happy birthday, it's just after midnight." Judging by the hug he gives me in return, he's not ready to let me go, but he's got no choice in the matter.   
  
I go into my room and shut the door. I'm too tired and lazy to grab a shower, so I look for my PJs in the dark when the door opens again and he comes in.   
  
"Can I stay here tonight?" He asks plainly.   
  
"Harry, no."   
  
"Not for that. I know what lurks beyond that wall." He motions to what's separating my room from the guest bedroom.   
  
"Then?"   
  
"It's my birthday." He whines.   
  
"Still a bad idea. She would completely flip out."   
  
"I can leave early in the morning. Please?"   
  
  


*

  
  
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"It's a really bad idea."   
  
"I think it's a great idea" I smile.   
  
"You would," she laughs.   
  
"If we just sleep, how's she going to know?"   
  
"You're just going to sleep?" she asks me dubiously.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Promise?"   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Okay," she relents and moves over to make some room for me.   
  
I get into bed next door to her and close my eyes, willing sleep to come. But I can hear her breathing next to me and I can feel her warmth and every cell in my body is screaming at me to take advantage of the proximity of our bodies.   
  
"Can I kiss you goodnight?" I whisper.   
  
"You already did," she whispers back, laughing.   
  
"Once more?"   
  
She turns her head slightly and sighs, "Okay, but that's it."   
  
My lips find hers in the dark and whisper across her lips.   
  
"This is the best birthday I've ever had," I murmur against her mouth.   
  
She smiles and I take advantage of the movement to slide my tongue past the tiny part in her lips.   
  
She sighs and allows me to deepen the kiss and my tongue slides along the crevices in her mouth, tasting as much of her as she will give me.   
  
"Harry," she breaks the kiss, her breathing heavy.   
  
"It's just a kiss."   
  
"One that's going to get us both in a lot of trouble in about three seconds."   
  
"It won't be that fast," I promise her, remembering an earlier conversation.   
  
"Okay, we should sleep now."   
  
"I hate that you're so practical."   
  
"You'll thank me in the morning."   
  
"If this was going in another direction, I would."   
  
"Mrs. Weasley is right next door," she reminds me.   
  
"She sleeps like the dead," I advise her.   
  
"I bet you she isn't tonight," she sighs.   
  
"I can be quiet."   
  
"I don't want it to be like this," she says.   
  
"You've thought about it?" I ask incredulously.   
  
I can see her blushing even in the dark.   
  
"You have!"   
  
"Shhh! Not only are you going to wake her up, you're going to wake up the whole neighbourhood."   
  
I laugh against her shoulder.   
  
"I knew you wanted me!"   
  
"Be careful," she warns. "Or it just might be past tense."   
  
"Can't we just make out?" I ask, kissing along the curve of her shoulder.   
  
"Ummm, no?"   
  
"Not even this?" I ask, dipping my tongue into the groove at her collarbone.   
  
She sighs and shifts against me.   
  
"I knew this was a bad idea."   
  
"It feels good to me," I murmur.   
  
My hands come up to trace the swell of her breasts as my mouth finds hers again.   
  
"Harry…" she sighs against me.   
  
"Relax, Hermione. Just feel."   
  
She moans softly against my mouth.   
  
"This is so, so wrong, Harry."   
  
"Does it feel wrong?"   
  
"No," she sighs as I dip my head and make a wet circle around the part of her nightgown over her right nipple.   
  
"Then just let go."   
  
"She's right next door."   
  
I sigh and pull back.   
  
"I know."   
  
"It's not that I don't like this," she whispers. "It's just that it's your mother. She'll be gone the day after tomorrow, Harry."   
  
"That's too long," I whine.   
  
"We've waited this long," she says practically.   
  
"Don't remind me."   
  
She laughs.   
  
"Okay, you have to go."   
  
"I'll be good, I promise."   
  
"I know," she grins. "I can't promise that I'll be good, though."   
  
I grin back and reluctantly slide from the bed.   
  
"Two more sleeps?"   
  
"Tonight and tomorrow night," she laughs.   
  
"It's like my birthday and Christmas all wrapped up into one."   
  
"Go, before she wakes up."   
  
"Maybe I can convince her to leave early?"   
  
"Knowing what she knows now? Not on your life. Goodnight, Harry."   
  
I sigh and head back to my own room.


	14. HAppy Birthday Harry!

A/N: Hello.  I made a little mistake in the chapter titles, THIS chapter was supposed to be called "Happy Birthday Harry".   For reasons that will be obvious when you read.  And I'm already starting the next chapter. But I expect it won't be in for a week, because…well to be honest I keep blushing.  But I'll get my act together.  ;) Read on!

By the time I get to sleep, it's no earlier than 2 in the morning and it's a pain to drag my ass out of bed at 7, but the fact I had a very pleasant evening and an even more pleasant night makes it bearable.      
  
I wasn't surprised this morning at wanting to see him. It's the needing to see him that made me take advantage of  Mrs. Weasley's time in the bathroom and run across the hall and slip into his room without knocking.   
  
As I walk in, he grabs a green shirt from his closet. He's already dressed in a pair of steel grey corduroys and a white t-shirt. Damn, I missed show and tell.   
  
He puts the shirt on and grins when he sees me.   
  
"You're already dressed."   
  
"I was efficient this morning."   
  
"Any particular reason?"   
  
"Hmm, maybe."   
  
I grab his right wrist and button the cuff. He holds up his left wrist for me so I can do the same, and then I start working on the rest of the buttons, from the bottom to the top. When I reach his chest, I want to leave the top ones undone, and his hands cover mine and he intertwines our fingers, then stretches our arms, hands connected, outward and away from our bodies. For some reason, this motion pulls me forward, against him.   
  
"Have you noticed we keep running into each other in bedrooms?"   
  
"What a coincidence."   
  
"Were you looking for me?" He whispers against my cheek.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"I just needed to."   
  
I expect he'll kiss me at that point, but he draws me into a tight, close hug instead. "I really meant what I said about this being my best birthday."   
  
"And it's not even over yet."   
  
"Don't tease me, you know it will drive me crazy all day."   
  
I raise my lips to meet his, and it's perfunctory and sweet and quite possibly the best start to the day that I could have conjured up. "I should go." I tell him, and it occurs to me we've become a bit clandestine, meeting in the shadows, behind closed doors.   
  
"I wish it didn't have to be like this." I say to him before leaving.   
  
"It's only today."   
  
"I know, but we should still be on good terms with Mrs. Weasley."   
  
"We're fine, she just doesn't approve of the living arrangements."   
  
"Trust me, if she goes home and you're not happy with her, you won't be happy with me either."   
  
"Hermione, if there was a compromise to be reached here, believe me, I'd go for it.  She has to know that we're consenting adults."   
  
"Probably, but at least she'll know it's not just some thing born out of temporary lust." Love is blindness, I want to say, but that's a 4 letter word. That one is taboo.   
  
With that, I leave his room and go downstairs to do one last visual sweep of the place before people start arriving.   
  
  


*

There are now a good number of my friends and even more people I don't really know gathered in my house. Being that I'm the guest of honour, I can hardly sit upstairs alone for the entire night, waiting for Hermione to come back and join me.  
  
I quickly change and head downstairs to the party. Thankfully, I'm not the last guest to arrive as Lavender arrives fashionably late and announces that the party can now begin.   
  
Hermione is standing by the door, gathering jackets and I see Lavender hand her a bag, winking, none too inconspicuously.   
  
I move closer to the two of them and shake my head at the blonde.   
  
"What are you up to?"   
  
"What do you mean?" she asks, trying to look innocent.   
  
"What's in the bag?" I motion to it with my head.   
  
"It's for later," she grins at me.   
  
"Alcohol?" I guess.   
  
"What do you take me for, a cheap drunk?"   
  
I smirk at her. "Lavender, I'm sure you've raised your tolerance level so high that it would be quite expensive to get you hammered."   
  
She's not quite sure whether to take this as a compliment or an insult so she just sticks her tongue out to me in reply.   
  
"Anyway," she tosses her hair over her shoulder. "I expect the alcohol to be provided if the event is to be worth my while."   
  
As if on cue, my mother appears in the doorway of the kitchen.   
  
"Would anyone like some punch?" she asks.   
  
"Is it spiked?" Lavender whispers.   
  
Hermione laughs, "I highly doubt it."   
  


Lavender sighs and politely declines the offer.   
  


The party is for the most part a subdued affair and it comes as no surprise that Lavender makes her excuses, wishes me a happy birthday and is gone early.   A few minutes later the door bursts open.

"THE FUN HAS ARRIVED!" Ron and the rest of my Quidditch team barrel in, tanks of firewhiskey and all.

"Ron!" Hermione laughs.  Ron sweeps her up in a bear hug and spins her around until she threatens to jinx him.  Then he comes after me.  I recoil in mock fear.

"Good to see you, mate!  Happy Birthday!"  he gives me a hearty pound on the shoulder.

"Ron, calm down!" Mrs. Weasley scolds her son.

"Sorry mum." The rest of the guys snicker as Mrs. Weasley gives Ron a warm hug and kiss on the cheek.  Fred and George barge in after the Quidditch team and I know that Lavender will be very sorry that she left early.  They enchant some lawn gnomes to give a show (that, when their mother turns around, turns very naughty) and Tonks flares her hair up so they look like still fireworks.  Mr. Wealsey ogles at our television while Lupin tries to drag him away to join the party.  The noise level is incredible.  
  
After the cake, I head into the kitchen and my mom follows me.   
  
"Harry, you don't need to do that. I'll take care of it" she tells me as I stack plates.  
  
"It's fine," I tell her over my shoulder.   
  
"Things are winding down out there, you should go say goodnight."   
  
"This will only take a few minutes."   
  
"When did you care about cleanliness?" she laughs.   
  
I shrug. "I just needed to clear my head."   
  
"What's on your mind?" she asks, as if she doesn't know.   
  
I sigh.  "I don't like the way things are between us," I tell her.   
  
"I don't either, but that's the way I feel," she says, taking the plates from me.

  
"And I feel the way that I feel."   
  
She charms the plates so hard that they zoom into the cabinet faster than me on my Firebolt.  
  
"Mom, can you stop that?"   
  
"What?"   
  
"You're going bust a hole in the back of the cupboard."   
  
Thunk.  Thunk.   
  
"Mom!"   
  
She stops and turns toward me.   
  
"What do you want me to say, Harry?"   
  
"I don't know."   
  
"Yes, you do. You want me to tell you that it's okay that you're living in sin with Hermione."   
  
What - living in sin?? "We haven't done anything!"   
  
"But you intend to."   
  
I can't deny it.   
  
I sigh.   
  
"Who do you think I am?"   
  
She gives me an odd look.   
  
"What kind of a question is that?"   
  
"A valid one, I think. Can you answer it, please?"   
  
"You're my son's best friend. You are also my son, and a hero, and a star Quidditch player." she says.   
  
"Yes, I am." I wait for her to continue and when she doesn't, I do. "I'm your son and you raised me.  Yes, you did.  Merlin knows what I would be like if the Dursleys raised me. You taught me things.  All of us. You taught me to respect myself and to respect other people and to be honest and kind and to love without reservation."   
  
She nods, but doesn't say anything.   
  
"Then you need to understand that that's all I'm doing. I'm respecting myself by being true to my feelings for Hermione. I'm respecting her by validating her feelings for me. I'm being honest with you and with her and with myself. I'm loving her without reservation, without fear that I'm doing something wrong, because I'm not."   
  
She busies herself with her wand again.   
  
"I know who I am, Mom. I know what I want. I know the difference between right and wrong."   
  
"Do you?" she fires at me. "I'm wondering, Harry. Because you are not ready."  
  
"I don't think it's true.  I – both of us – have been through more than most people in a whole lifetime.  And love is love," I say just as firmly.   
  
The word hangs heavy in the air. It looms between the two of us until she breaks the silence.   
  
"What you feel isn't love," she tells me. "It's lust. Love is about respect and commitment and I don't see either of you demonstrating that."   
  
"Maybe that was true with the other girls." I say and instantly regret my big mouth.   
  
She doesn't miss it. She doesn't miss anything, really.   
  
Her face clouds over and it's like I've just told her I was gay or something. Really, her reaction would probably be about the same.   
  
So I was a huge flirt. So what?   
  
So a lot, apparently.   
  
She puts her wand away and turns to walk out of the room.   
  
"So you're just going to go back to the Burrow angry at me?" I ask her as she's walking away.   
  
"I'm not angry at you, Harry. I'm disappointed."   
  
"Mom, stay and talk to me please."   
  
"What is there to say?"   
  
"That you trust me to make my own decisions?" I ask.   
  
"I don't have a choice, do I?" She leaves the question hanging in the air as she walks away.   
  
There's nothing I can do but go back out to what's left of my party.   
  
  


*

  
  
  
"My supervisor is a total asshole," Melissa tells me when I ask her how her studies are coming along. "He has me doing his research all day, and then I'm buried with my own stuff over the weekend and I'm so behind I'll probably be in the lab on Christmas eve."   
  
I smile at her sympathetically.  
  
"And have you any idea what my tuition is? I could buy a house."   
  
She and Jonathan are among the last guests to stick around, courtesy of their proximity to home. Ron and the team had to go catch up with all they'd miss during their stay in the States, so he crushes my bones again and makes me promise to visit him tomorrow at his flat.

  
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mrs. Weasley walk out of the kitchen, and he follows close behind. Judging by the looks on their faces, it must have been one hell of a conversation.   
  
He finds his way to my side, briefly touching the small of my back to let me know he's next to me. I look up at him, the questions evident in my eyes.   
  
"Later." He says and goes over to the front door to say goodbye to the people leaving.   
  
I follow Mrs. Weasley out to the deck, and sit across from her. She's quiet and I have a lot of sympathy for her. It would almost be easier if he and I had been shacking up for a while, but now she's got to look at me and see two kids she's seen grown up want to "do it", and that has to be hard and it has to be awkward.   
  
"I'm sorry." I don't know why I say it, but it seems appropriate.   
  
She just breathes, slowly, calmly, deeply.   
  
"He's in love with you, you don't need to apologize for it." She looks up and must note the look on my face. "He is."   
  
"We just started talking about dating. It's so new."   
  
"No, it isn't. You've only now put it in motion."   
  
Have I been waiting for this moment to arrive? I never thought about it this way. Maybe I was lying to myself.   
  
"He's in love with you, and he'll tell you that eventually, but that doesn't mean he's also not smitten with you. Because he is." I don't say anything to this, and she goes on. "So, maybe you could keep that in mind, please? I know you're both thinking about freedom in 24 hours when I go, but aren't all things worth having also worth waiting for? A little bit, at least?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Okay.  Be careful, dear.  I see it in your eyes too."   
  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
"Are you going to see her off with me?" Harry asks at breakfast the next day.   
  
"No, you guys should go ahead. It'll be good for you.  I have to visit Ron, anyway."   
  
He nods.  Then he suddenly grins suggestively. "Do you have plans for the evening?"   
  
"Harry!"   
  
"What?"   
  
"We're so not having this conversation over pancakes. Even if they are second rate and came from a box."   
  
"But we have this whole big house to ourselves."   
  
"We're not a couple of virginal kids who plan it out because they want everything to be perfect, and then end up using the first opportunity when the parents are out."   
  
"No, we aren't. But what's wrong with wanting things to be perfect?"   
  
"Nothing. It's just...pressure."   
  
"I can't imagine I'd be disappointed."   
  
"Then let's go with the flow. I'm not pencilling you into my day book."   
  
"Alright, why not? I can buy us dinner and we can watch TV. It'll be nice to just sit with each other."   
  
"Seriously?"   
  
"Yeah. I always wanted to sit with you, and not wonder about whether it's okay for my hand to be here or my thoughts to go there."   
  
I need to get going, but I definitely want to say bye to Mrs. Weasley, and I think she wants one last look at the before picture, then bottle it up as a memory. I head upstairs and after talking to her briefly, get rewarded with a hug which is different than the ones she'd given me before, but it's not bad. She wants the best for both us, and I can relate to that.   
  
  


*

  
  
  
The house is quiet.  When she gets to my side I ask her if she wants tea or something before she goes and she shakes her head in response.   
  
"So is this it?" I sigh. "You're just not going to speak to me?"   
  
"What is there to say?" she asks. "You've made up your mind, haven't you?"   
  
"Yes," I say honestly. "But can't you try to be happy for me?"   
  
"If I thought that this was going to be good for you, I would."   
  
"You think Hermione is bad for me?"   
  
"No, I didn't say that."   
  
"Then what are you saying?"   
  
"I'm saying that if you really care about each other, then you will respect the relationship that you're trying to build."   
  
"I do."   
  
"Take time with it then, Harry. That's all I'm asking."   
  
"I've taken time, Mom. I've known Hermione for a while, you know. . ."   
  
"Not like this," she sighs.   
  
I shake my head.   
  
"If you can't even say the words…" she starts and then backs off.   
  
"What words?" I ask, although I know. I know.   
  
She knows that I know too and she doesn't reply.   
  
"I see I'm not going to convince you," she says instead. "So please, Harry, just promise me that you'll be careful."   
  
"Of what?"   
  
"With your heart. With her heart."   
  
Oh.   
  
She gives me a sad smile.   
  
"I should go."   
  


"Okay."  
  
"Will you write us?" I ask her. "I don't like that we're saying goodbye to each other this way."   
  
She nods. "I disapprove of the way that you're choosing to live your life, but you're still my son and I love you."   
  
I thank her and pull her into a hug.   
  
"I'm sorry that you can't understand this, Mom."   
  
She pulls back from me.   
  
"I understand more than you think I do, Harry."   
  
She picks up her bags and gives me a little smile.   
  
"I'll write you both tonight." She says in a worn out voice.  Crookshanks saunters into the living room from the kitchen, were he has been spending most of his time.  For the past several month he had been staying at the Grangers, so Hermione could have less stress with her new job and home.  The orange furball had just recently moved in with us, but he is not the loud annoying tiger that attacked me back in third year.  He is very old for a cat, which makes me think he is a half-breed of some other magical creature.  He purrs softly, and my mother smiles at him, an aged creature that does not and may never have a complex problem like ours.  
  
She says good-bye again, and then she's gone.   
  


I sigh and look jealously at Crookchanks.  "I wish I was as care-free as you are."

Crookshanks gave me a very "Hermione-esque" eye roll and trotted back into the kitchen, making a snorting noise.

"Maybe I should get Hermione that dog."  
  


. . . .

I knock at Ron's door.  He opens it in his boxers and a grimy t-shirt. Classic Ron.

"Hermy!" he gives me another of his organ-squishing hugs then looks me over.  "If I'd have known this was a date I would've dressed up too."

"Honestly, Ron.  Just because people get up before 10 and wear pants, doesn't mean they're dressed up."  I give him a kiss on the cheek. 

He closes the door behind me and offers me some tea.  

"So how've you and Harry been?  Been keeping him in line, I expect." He grins.

"Same old.  He still won't let me have a puppy.  I keep telling him Crookshanks is getting lonely with you having Pig all the way here and Hedwig always out."

"That bastard" Ron jokes.  "I'll get you one for your birthday.  He can't turn away a present."

"Thanks Ron!"

"No problem"

We start to talk and joke about random things about our jobs.  About the States.  About the twins and Ginny.  About Ron's next girlfriend, or "victim" as I refer to it.  All the while I thought about my upcoming evening with Harry.  Apparently this showed.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?"

"Of course."

"Well, when I said that Harry was clubbing like mad in Vegas, you dipped your teabag into your cinnamon roll."

I looked down and saw that this was indeed, true.  I blush.  He notices.

"No way!"

"Ron – "

"No bloody way!"

"Listen – "

"That's great! Good for you two!"

"Ron – " 

"Harry, huh?" Ron says thoughtfully, startlingly calm.

"What?" I say, limiting my sentence to one word since I know he would have cut me off again anyway.

"Well for the record I'm gonna say that I was the first to see this coming.  Really, in 7th year when you fell while trying to hang a Christmas banner and you landed on Harry in a 'compromising' position you guys didn't move for like half an hour.  Staring and all that."

"Ron, what – "

Suddenly his eyes flared.  "Wait a second.  He's not playing you, is he?  That – "

"Ron! Sit down!  No, he's not!"

He sits.  "Really?"

"No.  We're just dating for now.  It's not that serious yet."

"Okay, well let me just say it's about damn time you two sucked it up and finally made your moves.  Have you shagged yet?"

I spit out my tea.  And slap his shoulder.

"Ow.  Just kidding."

"That's none of your business, Weasley."

"If you say so." Suddenly Ron has a light bulb moment.  "What did mom say?"

"Well, she's disappointed that we're still living together. . .but she still loves us."

"She'll get over it."  Ron says dismissively.  "It is kind of weird, you too having been friends for so long, but she'll get over it."

"I don't know.  This isn't Bill's hair. . ."

"Trust me, she will."

Half an hour later I tell him I have to go, and he sees me out the door with a case of firewhiskey for Harry.  He reminds me again that he is happy for us and tells me that if Harry ever lays an eye on another woman he would pummel him into oblivion, best mates or not.

*  
  
  
"Was it terrible?" she asks when she gets home.   
  
"It was awkward."   
  
"I'm sorry."   
  
"It's not your fault."   
  
She sighs, "Yes, it is. At least partly."   
  
"I can't help that I'm attracted to you," I tell her with a goofy grin.   
  
"No, I guess I am pretty irresistible," she rolls her eyes.   
  
In reply, my arms wrap around her waist and pull her close.   
  
"Harry," she sighs as my mouth, hot and wet, settles on her neck.   
  
"Mmmm?" I ask, absorbed in my task.   
  
"She's probably envisioning this right now."   
  
"Gosh, you sure know how to kill the mood," I groan, drawing back.   
  
She shakes her head at me.   "Ron knows too."

"Are you going to bring up everyone we know?"

She smiles.  "Sorry."

"What did he say?"

"He's happy.  And he gave me enough alcohol to get you drunk for a month."

"Great."  I resume my task.  
  
"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something that she said."   
  
"What?"   
  
"That things worth having are worth waiting for."   
  
I pull back completely and look her in the eye.   
  
"We have waited, Hermione."   
  
She bites her lip, which I find incredibly arousing.   
  
"It hasn't been so long," she says softly. "We only just admitted that we were more than friends to each other."   
  
"I've wanted you for years," I tell her candidly. "Even if that's not true for you, it is for me."   
  
She smiles, blushing.   
  
"My mom said that if I couldn't say the words to you, that it wasn't the right time" I tell her.   
  
She doesn't say anything.   
  
"And I was thinking about that. I was wondering why I hadn't."   
  
"Harry…"   
  
"I think maybe it's because I was afraid that you didn't feel the same way, but then I realized, that doesn't change how I feel. I've been going on about how I am being honest with myself for maybe the first time in my life but I can't say it out loud? How hypocritical is that?"   
  
"Harry…"   
  
"I love you."   
  
She closes her eyes.   
  
"And you don't need to say that back to me. I just wanted to be honest."   
  
"Okay."   
  
"It's not to get you into bed either."   
  
"I know."   
  
"If you want to wait, I can wait."   
  
"Okay."   
  
"Okay."   
  
She opens her eyes and I smile at her.   
  
"I want us to wait, Harry. I want this to be worth having."   
  
"You are."   
  
She smiles.   
  
I lace my fingers with hers.   
  
"Okay, so if that's out of the plan, what do you suggest we do this evening?"   
  
She leans close to whisper to me.   
  
"Just because we're not doing that doesn't mean we can't do other things."   
  
  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
Hedwig drops off a letter from my mother, she's perhaps expecting that we'd be lying in a tangle of sheets by the time she got home.   
  
I hate that she's wrong, and even more than that, I hate that she always gets her own way.   
  
  


*

  
  
  
We settle into a nice routine over the next few days. As is the usual for us, we don't see much of each other during the day, but when I get home, instead of retiring to the bathroom for a long shower, I sit with him and talk. It's no different than our usual conversations, and I keep thinking he was probably right about how friendship is a starting point moreso than a line not to be crossed.   
  
I'm sitting home one day reading, when Harry's head appears in my fireplace.  Crookshanks meows in greeting.

"Turn on the wizarding wireless.  I'm giving an interview."

"With who?"

"Witch Weekly"

I laugh.  They always have an interesting way of twisting whatever Harry says into something teenage girls could drool over.  
  
In about 10 minutes, he comes on the air and most of what he says is in one ear and out the other. They ask him about his childhood influences, living with muggles, being a hero that thwarted the Dark Lord, yada yada yada…   
  
"So, how is your lovely roommate?" The interviewer asks.   My ears perk up.  
  
"She's great, busy with work."   
  
"And you haven't killed each other yet at home, so that's a plus."   
  
"Yeah, well, we're hardly home, so the opportunity hasn't really been there." Harry laughs.  It's at least partly true.   
  
"Do the tabloid stories bug you much?"   
  
"Which ones?"   
  
"The ones speculating about the two of you."   
  
"No, not really. It goes with the territory."   
  
"And there's no truth to them?"   
  
"Uh, well, the thing is, they spin things their own way, and even if you're one of those people who, uh, think there's some truth to everything, it's so distorted by the time you read about it in there that, you know, it's not worth the aggravation."   
  
"Would there be some truth to the dating rumors?"   
  
"Look, I think Hermione is great. She's great, it's no secret I've always thought so." I raise an eyebrow at the in he's given.   
  
"And?"   
  
"And now you're starting to sound like The Quibbler." He laughs and the interviewer picks up on the deflection and moves on to discussing the current Quidditch season.   
  


. . . .

  
  
  
"Hey."   
  
"Living room." He yells back. "Did I say too much?" He asks me as soon as I walk into his line of sight.   
  
"No. But you definitely suggested something. I'd love to read your fan mail next month." I wink at him.   
  
"I'm sure it'll be well worth the wait. Will I get an angry call from your mom?"   
  
"Actually, I sort of lied before when I said I hadn't told anyone. When I went home, I told my mom and dad that you liked me."   
  
"Oh, really? What did they say?"   
  
"Dad asked if you were my boyfriend." I chuckle.   
  
"Am I?"   
  
"Yeah, I guess so. Do you want to be?" I can't believe I'm saying this.  
  
"Do you have to ask?"   
  
I shrug my shoulders.   
  
"You don't have to ask." He assures me. "Unfortunately, this newfound boyfriend of yours has to go out east for a couple of days."   
  
"When?" I can't keep the disappointment from my voice. It's the weekend, I was hoping for more than a half an hour in the evening when we're both too exhausted to do anything but turn the TV on.  
  
"Tomorrow morning."   
  
I sigh.   
  
"I know this blows, but I'll be home in no time. And we should sit down and figure out what to do about your birthday."   
  
"Yeah."   
  
There are a lot of things I suddenly really want to tell him. I love you. Don't go. I love you, don't go. I want to say them, but they stay inside, waiting for another day.   
  


. . . .

  
  
  
It's dark outside. But not dark enough to make it the middle of the night. There is most definitely a warm body next to me. I try to conjure up the images of last night, and nothing in particular comes to mind, so either this is a dream or I've got an unexpected visitor.   
  
I open up my right eye and see him grinning at me.   
  
I stretch a bit, then take a deep breath. "What time is it?"   
  
"5:30."   
  
"Can't sleep?"   
  
"I have to go in an hour."   
  
"Sucks."   
  
"I know."   
  
"You want to go back to sleep?" He whispers against my temple.   
  
"Um, I don't know."   
  
"Okay, we can stay up then."   
  
  


*

  
  
  
I told her it was okay if she wanted to wait. I tried to tell myself that. For a while, maybe I even had both of us convinced. But that was before I was lying in her bed. Before I felt her body pressed close to mine, her breath hot on my neck, before she was this languid and relaxed next to me.   
  
I place a soft kiss on her temple and then other on her brow. Still another on the corner of her lips. They lift in a knowing smile and she whispers that we only have an hour.   
  
"A lot can be accomplished in an hour," I tell her.   
  
"Mmmm," she sighs.   
  
"You should come with me" I tell her.   
  
"And what would I do while you're out with the boys and ignoring everything but the snitch?"   
  
"Watch adoringly?" I suggest and she gives me a look that says she doesn't play the adoring girlfriend.   
  
I love that about her.   
  
She shifts slightly so that she can prop herself up on an elbow to look at me.   
  
"What?" I whisper.   
  
She shakes her head.   
  
"I never thought I'd be attracted to you."   
  
"Thanks?" I laugh.   
  
She laughs with me.   
  
"You were the one who asked for that list, remember?"   
  
"I didn't think you'd actually make one!"   
  
She grins at me.   
  
"I'm full of surprises."   
  
"Oh, really? Have you maybe changed your mind about this abstinence thing?"   
  
"Would that surprise you?"   
  
"Yes?" I ask hopefully.   
  
She smiles mischievously.   
  
"How much time do you need?" I ask her seriously.   
  
"Are you going to mark it on your calendar?" she teases. "Put a big red circle around the date?"   
  
"Do you think I'm that pathetic?"   
  
"Well…"   
  
I stick my tongue out at her.   
  
"It's not about time, really. I mean, it is, but it's about me feeling comfortable with us."   
  
"You don't?" I ask soberly.   
  
She shakes her head. "You're going to take this the wrong way."   
  
"Is there a right way to take it?"   
  
"When we first started… dating, I guess… it's no secret that I was concerned about what that meant to our friendship."   
  
I nod, interested in where she is going with this.   
  
"It's funny though, this week, I realized that we're still the same friends we were before."   
  
"That's not exactly true," I wink at her.   
  
She rolls her eyes, "Yeah, okay. But aside from that, it is. We still talk like we used to, we still make each other laugh and think. You're still you."   
  
"And you're still you," I smile at her. "And I happen to really like you."   
  
"Just like?" she teases. "Last week you loved me."   
  
I sober, "I do."   
  
"I want to…" she stops.   
  
I shake my head. "It's okay, Hermione. Just because I said it, doesn't mean that you have to say it back. It doesn't work like that."   
  
She nods and falls on her back.   
"When will you be back?"   
  
"Tuesday afternoon."   
  
"How long can you stay after that?"   
  
"A week?" I shrug. "It'll be a home game."   
  
She sighs. "I hate Quidditch."  
  
"What are you going to do while I'm away?" I ask, playing with her hair.   
  
"Oh, you know… Lavender is going to bring back that bottle of booze she didn't enjoy at your birthday party and she's going to get out her little black book and we're going to have a wild orgy with a bunch of male models," she teases.   
  
I raise an eyebrow. "If that's the way you like it, I could cavort around in some boxer briefs for you, you know. All you had to do was ask." I pretend pout and she snorts.   
  
"You don't seem like a boxer-brief kind of guy to me," she muses.   
  
"Oh, really?"   
  
"No," she shakes her head. "I bet you wear regular boxers. Maybe ones with little happy faces. And Mrs. Weasley probably wrote your name inside them."   
  
"Wouldn't you like to know?"   
  
She shrugs.   
  
I lunge at her and she squeals and dissolves into giggles. But when my mouth makes contact with hers, we stop playing and the kiss turns hungry and urgent.   
  
"Harrrrry," she says, breaking away. "You have to leave soon."   
  
"I can be late."   
  
She shakes her head at me.   
  
"Come with me?"   
  
"No, I don't think so."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
"Because you'll kiss me like this again there and then I won't be able to let you leave to play Quidditch."   
  
"That was the plan," I wink at her. 

"And I have work."  
  
She pushes against my shoulder and I reluctantly get up.   
  
"Go," she whispers.   
  
"I love you," I tell her again and she smiles at me in reply. 


	15. Welcoming Party

A/N: Okay sorry for the wait.  I was err, indisposed.  But to make up for it, I made this chapter, well, this story is now officialy rated R.  Or, um, NC-17 but that's our little secret.  Hope it doesn't seem too soon, but I never wrote something like this before and I wanted to give it a try.  Now don't you people just skip all the rest and go read the smut first.  Naughties.

"They're all asking about you."  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"About whether you've decided that I was worthy of worship." He says. It's definitely got a cheeky feel to it.  
  
"Must be a slow news day."  
  
"You wound me."  
  
He contacts me between his duties and before he goes to bed. It amounts to a lot of tiny spurts of time, so we never have a chance to say much to one another, but it's also kind of fun. Harry's head pops into our fireplace several times a day, and I begin to wonder how he is finding the Floo Network on the road.  
  
"I saw a bunch of Buddhist monks today, they were walking, like in a procession."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Hermione, do you think we all go to heaven?"  
  
"What, everybody? Good people? Who?"  
  
"Everybody who is decent, I guess. Everybody who gets up in the morning, makes an honest living, treats their families right."  
  
"What brought this about?"  
  
"The Buddhist monks. They were just...there was something about them."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"I don't know.  So many beliefs out there…what is right?"   
  
"Do you know what you believe?"   
  


"…Yes."

  
"Then that's your answer."  
  
"Okay." He says, seemingly satisfied, at least for the time being. "I love you. Things make sense with you."  
  
"I wish you were here." I reply.  
  


*

I "pop" in front of our house in mid-afternoon.  My bags are quickly deserted on the stoop and I fumble with the doorknob.. Once the door is open and I don't see her waiting there for me, my face falls.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
No answer.  
  
"Hermione!"  
  
Silence greets me and I sigh resignedly and turn to retrieve my luggage.  
  
"Leaving again so soon?"  
  
I whirl around and see her standing at the top of the stairs, laughing at me.  
  
"I thought you were out."  
  
"And miss your arrival?"  
  
I feel a goofy grin spreading across my face.  
  
"So… I'm here."  
  
She shakes her head, "That's not how it goes."  
  
"No?"  
  
"No. It's 'Hi honey, I'm home.'"  
  
"Hi honey, I'm home."  
  
I take the stairs at a run and reach her, more breathless from the sight of her than from the run.  
  
My hands cup her face and I tilt it up to mine.  
  
"I missed you."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"So much." My lips settle on hers, lightly at first and then with more urgency and she laughs and breaks the kiss.  
  
"That much, huh?"  
  
"More."  
  
Our tongues get in on the action this time and she slides my jacket off my shoulders and pulls it away from me.  
  
I break this kiss and lean my forehead against hers.  
  
"Okay, I should go get my stuff."  
  
"It can wait."  
  
She tugs on my hand and leads me into my bedroom.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Look around."  
  
I do. All my clothes have been put away. There is nothing left on lying around. The bed is made. It's cleaner than it has been since the day we moved in.  
  
"You cleaned my room?"  
  
"I told you I wasn't coming back in here until it was clean."  
  
"And I didn't get on that?"  
  
She shakes her head. "You kept coming to my room."  
  
"Is that wrong?"  
  
"No. But I figured it was time that I reciprocated."  
  
I inhale.  
  
She walks over to my dresser and picks up a piece of paper.  
  
"The list?" I ask, puzzled.  
  
She nods.  
  
"They were all good reasons."  
  
I don't answer.  
  
"They're not anymore."  
  
She comes back to me and slides her hands along my forearms.  
  
"I'm glad you're here."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"I missed you too."  
  
I raise an eyebrow.  
  
"Really?"  
  
She laughs, "So much."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah," she whispers, her lips settling on mine determinedly. "Yes."  
  
This time our kiss has purpose and understanding. There is desire and wonder and determination in it. Her hands move up my arms and down along the buttons of my shirt. Then they give way to her and her fingers move inside, hot, burning my skin.  
  
I'm amazed and more than a little perplexed by her sudden change of heart so I resignedly break the kiss and pull away from her.  
  
"You don't want to?" she asks.  
  
"Of course I do. Of course. But I thought you wanted to wait until it was worth waiting for."  
  
"It is," she says simply. "You are."  
  
"Oh."  
  
She laughs."You're blushing."  
  
"No, I'm not," I deny.  
  
"You are!"  
  
"I never thought I would be worth waiting for."  
  
She smiles at me and her fingers work the buttons on her own shirt.  
  
"No, let me?" I ask, reaching for her.  
  
"You want to undress me?"  
  
"Unveil you."  
  
"Don't make me change my mind," she laughs.  
  
"Love you."  
  
She stops smiling.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
"You really do?"  
  
"I do."  
  
"Why?"  
  
I shake my head, "Because I don't have a choice. Because you're not the only one who made a list."  
  
She gives me a puzzled look.  
  
"I had this idea in my head about my ideal woman," I tell her and this time, I know I'm blushing. "And I tried to find her in all those other girls. But you kept meeting every single one of my requirements and I finally realized that."  
  
"And you love me?"  
  
I smile, "And I love you."  
  
She shakes her head slowly in amazement.  
  
"And that list I made? You proved it wrong. So I love you."  
  
I gaze at her, my breath caught in my throat.  
  
"You didn't have to tell me to get me into bed," I say finally, teasing her. "That was a given."  
  
She laughs at me but there are tears in her eyes."Then why are you still standing over there?"  
  
I approach her and finish unbuttoning her shirt.  
  
I look up into her eyes and she give me her consent. The silky fabric slides down her arms and away from her even more lustrous skin. As I untangle the fabric from her arms, she does the same with mine so that I'm now naked above the waist.  
  
My lips graze at her collarbone and my fingers work the clasp on her bra until she grows frustrated with my efforts and pulls away.  
  
"You can't undo a bra?" she teases and undoes the offending garment easily.  
  
My cheeks burn but she forces me to meet her gaze and smiles softly at me.  "Well, I'm nervous."  
  
She seems to like that and takes my hands in hers to settle them on the rise of her breasts. I can feel her nipples protruding through the thin fabric and I scrape my thumbs across them. She arches forward and her lips find mine.  
  
I pull the bra away from her and now feel her bare flesh beneath my hands. It is warm and soft and hard at the same time and I feel myself growing harder and harder.  
  
I pull my mouth away from hers.  
  
"More," I breathe against her ear and she nods in agreement.  
  
"More."  
  
My lips travel a path from her neck down to her breast and I circle the hardened peak of her nipple with my tongue, making a wet path there. She sighs in frustration and pushes her lower body against me, her hands gripping my hair to hold me closer to her.  
  
I pull her straining nipple into my mouth, grazing it with my teeth as her hands travel lower, seeking to speed up this process that is driving us both mad.  
  
Her fingers work the zipper on my jeans with focus and determination and she soon manages to divest me of the garment and pulls away momentarily so that we can shed the remainder of our clothing.  
  
She moves back toward me but I shake my head.  
  
She frowns at me, "Are you changing your mind?"  
  
"What? No, no. Why would I? I just want to look at you."  
  
"Oh." This time, it's her turn to blush. After a moment, she moves back into my orbit. "Enough?"  
  
"Never," I whisper.  
  
"For now?"  
  
I nod, unable to speak, and we come together urgently. Hands move everywhere, fingers tracing contours and peaks and valleys. We are both breathing heavily by the time we reach the bed and she gasps when my fingers first touch the heat between her legs.  
  
She reaches for me and I pull her hands away, my breath hot against her skin when I speak.  
  
"No, not yet."  
  
"No?"  
  
"Not yet," I smile. "I want you to be ready."  
  
"I am," she protests.  
  
"Not yet," I shake my head.  
  
"How do you know?" she sighs against me.  
  
"I know.  I feel you, Hermione. I know."  
  
My fingers resume their task and soon they are slick and wet and she is moving against me.  
  
"Now?" she asks, her voice catching.  
  
I push one finger inside her gently and when she doesn't protest, another. She starts to shake beneath me and I move my mouth up next to her ear.  
  
"It's okay, it's okay." I tell her.  
  
She peaks then, crying out, her whole body convulsing beneath mine.  
  
"Harry…"  
  
"It's okay."  
  
"You…" she sobs. "Want you."  
  
She takes matters into her own hands then, wrapping her fingers around my shaft decisively, moving along it until I'm ready to erupt and have to physical restrain her.  
  
"Please?" she asks desperately.  
  
"I can't say no to you."  
  
"Now," she says, biting my shoulder gently as one hand comes up to scrape across my nipples with her nails and she continues to stroke me with the other.  
  
"Wait," I realize we need some kind of protection.

She whispers something.  
  
 "What?"  
  
"Contraceptive charm.  Now," she says, determination evident in her eyes.  
  
I rest my forehead against her and push into her by degrees, waiting until she has accepted me fully before I start to thrust against her.  
  
She meets my strokes and grasps at me as she pushes upwards, trying to envelop me further.  
  
The sensations we evoke in each other spiral higher and higher and I erupt inside her as she uses her internal muscles to provoke me. She orgasms then, my name erupting forth from her lips like a prayer and when she finally stops pulsating around me, I move to roll off of her and she hold me close.  
  
"Not yet, I like this."  
  
I laugh and she smiles at the sensation against her damp skin.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
"Mmmm? I love you."  
  
"I love you" she laughs. "And it's true. The best things are worth waiting for."  
  


*

  
  
His hair is sticky with sweat and I lift it off his forehead, revealing the jagged scar he was so famous for. He opens his eyes a tiny crack in response, and I'm presented with that familiar heavy lidded look.  
  
"Sleepy?" I ask.  
  
"Um..."  
  
"It's okay," I chuckle. "Sleep."  
  
He looks to wrap his arms around me and bring me closer, but he struggles as I slide out of bed.  
  
"Where are you going?" He's still not completely awake but it doesn't prevent panic from creeping into his voice.  
  
"I need to use the bathroom. You should sleep."  
  
He lifts his head from the pillow. "Are you coming back to bed later?"  
  
When I nod, he collapses back onto the mattress.  
  
It's just too bizarre to walk around the house naked, even if it is my own, so I open up one of his drawers and take out a t-shirt, then go to my room to find a pair of shorts. I pass by his room on the way to the bathroom and close the door, not wanting to wake him.  
  
I clearly initiated this evening's activities and yet it feels so surreal to see him lying in his bed, flat on his stomach, his arm reaching over to where I was earlier. As stupid as it seems, the only thing I'd ever envisioned was maybe someday showing up to his wedding, drunk, demanding to know why he was marrying somebody else. In reality, I'd never do anything like that out of respect for my pride, but I truly thought it would take an extraordinary event to bring us together, like this.  
  
Maybe he'd come home one day, his heart broken by another woman and what better comfort is there than a warm body? Or maybe there would be an earthquake and we'd hide under something and then when it was over, have sex to celebrate the fact we were alive. Or maybe we'd meet up some day, when we were 30, both single, and figure why not give it a go for old times' sake.  
  
I never thought I'd sit at home for days, contemplating the moment he walked through that door. I never thought I'd clean his room so deliberately. I never thought it would be this mundane and ordinary.  
  
And it was oh so extraordinary.  
  
The shower allows me some privacy and time to think about where we are and where we're going, but my thoughts always return to the feel of him against my skin, and I smile against the warm spray.  
  
At the back of my mind is the worry about him catching flak from his mother and from a number of other people who will find everything about this to be wrong. At the back of my mind are the taunts I'll hear about how I'm catapulting myself to fame by sleeping with him, living with him, being with him. At the back of my mind are his family and mine, the feelings back home and what it means for us to be together.  
  
But at the forefront is the feel of his skin against mine and I allow that to take over.  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
"...I must be out and about, so leave me a message."  
  
"Hi mom. I'm just checking in. I'll have to get back to you about my birthday and the holidays still, so I'll call you in a couple of days. Anyway, I just wanted to see what you were up to, and to tell you that you were right. You were right and can now say 'I told you so'. I love you, talk to you soon. Bye."  
  
I called my mother.  I'm certain she'll call back my phone when she gets the message and as I'm getting some food, I hear a pop. My mother doesn't Floo…Ron doesn't have a fireplace…Harry's upstairs…

  
"Who's there?"  
  
"Hermione, hi."  
  
Mrs. Weasley.

  
"Hi." Don't think about what happened an hour ago. Think about your bagel and cream cheese and soup.  
  
"Is Harry back yet?"  
  
"He is, but he went right to bed when he got home." That much was certainly true.  
  
"Oh, okay."  
  
"Did you want me to wake him?"  
  
"No, no, let him sleep. I just wanted to know how his trip was."  
  
"I'll tell him see you in the morning."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
I'm trying not to feel guilty as she disappears, and at the same time, I think she'll have to learn to deal with things. As soon as I've had a few bites, Harry walks downstairs in his boxers.  
  
"Happy faces. I knew it." I tease him.  
  
"It's only this one pair." He insists.  
  
"If you say so."  
  
"Where you talking to yourself, or did I imagine that?"  
  
"Mrs. Weasley showed up." I inform him, waving at the fireplace.  
  
"Oh." He blushes a deep red. "I'll talk to her tomorrow."  
  
He extends his hand to me and then pulls me back upstairs. I know he's still sleepy, because when we lie down, he settles his head in the crook of my neck and his breathing soon becomes regular.  
  
"Was it, you know, good for you?" He whispers.  
  
I chuckle at the trepidation with which he asks me. "It was perfect, Harry."  
  
"I'm glad I'm not the only one who had a pleasant time."  
  
He drifts off and I join him.

***  
  
In the middle of the night, the rain comes down hard and I have to get up and make sure the window is completely shut or we'll have a minor flood in the morning. She doesn't wake up as I jump out of bed and is stretched out on her back. I know she's tired and I don't want to disturb her, and I don't know if she's got to be up early in the morning. Still, I'm up and I really, really hate the rain.  Seeker's instinct is to hate rain.  
  
I lie down next to her, flattening my palms against her bare stomach. Her skin is warm and for a second, I feel badly about waking her up, but it only lasts a second and when I kiss her softly, she stirs just a bit. I do it again and she sighs. My hands fly up to her face, brushing past her breasts, and the pads of my fingertips run across her eyelids, then her cheeks. Her reflexes kick in even though she's not fully awake and she turns her head towards mine. I kiss her again and again until she finally opens her eyes and smiles when she sees me.  
  
"Did I wake you? Sorry."  
  
"Yes, and don't be."  
  
"Okay, I lied, I'm not sorry."  
  
I quickly throw my right leg over her so that I'm straddling her and she raises her eyebrows at me as I lean close. The cotton of our shorts creates just enough friction that as I start to rub our bodies together, her eyes roll back in her head just a little. I use the opportunity and raise my hips up.  She smiles and nods her consent, and I pull my shorts down.  
  
My mouth seeks to mate with hers and she raises her head to make contact as soon as possible. She's clearly enjoying herself, and lets her hands roam free underneath my t-shirt.  
  
"My shirt." I notice she's wearing a shirt of mine.  
  
"You mind?"  
  
"Yes. It's rude not to have asked me for permission. So, it's got to come off now." I pulls it over her head and throw it on the floor. "That's better. And besides," I groans as her hands boldly cup my manhood, "why should you be the only one having fun?"  
  
"Mmm, I thought sharing was caring."  
  
"I'm a me-first personality. Those shorts? Are they mine?" I grin and yank at the waistband.  
  
"No, all mine."  
  
"I don't think so. I think they're mine." I pull them down her legs. "Only one way to check."  
  
I quickly kiss my way down to her nipple. I sucks on it insistently, grazing it with my teeth and she cries out, pleasure and pain swirling.  
  
"I knew you'd be a screamer." I laugh.  
  
"And I knew you'd fall asleep as soon as it was over." She shoots back.  
  
"Not this time, baby. I'm wide awake."  
  
There goes one of my fingers again, inside her, pushing deeply, then retreating, wet and slick. I touch the pad of my thumb against her, and she gasps, still sensitive from our earlier pursuits. I sense it and dip my thumb inside her, gathering some of the sticky moisture, then repeating the motion.  
  
"Better?"  
  
"Yeah. Harry?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"I'm in love with you."  
  
My fingers stop for a moment long enough to cup her face and kiss her thoroughly.   
  
"Can we play later?" she gasps.  No sooner than she mutter the incantation, do I find her legs wrapped around me tightly and my thumb back, rubbing along to the rhythm.   
  
I said she's a screamer, but this time, it happens so quickly that she only manages a sigh. I feel her still arond me, and I'm waiting, willing myself to hold on as she clenches her muscles against me involuntarily.  
  
When I open my eyes, she kisses me and welcomes me back. I marvel how it feels like we'd been doing this forever.


	16. The Rest of The World

I wake up for no reason the following morning and groggily, I untangle my limbs from Hermione's and move off the bed.  After giving brushing her hair from her face and giving her a soft kiss without waking her, I stumble down the stairs, miraculously not falling, and past the living room into the kitchen.  I eye the fireplace, and am reminded that I had to call my mother.  Crookshanks peers up at me knowingly.

"You're very annoying for someone who doesn't talk." I say to him.  He flicks his toilet brush tail at me carelessly.  That cat makes me wonder sometimes.

I make a mental note to see my mother, get a glass of water, and head back upstairs to Hermione.

She shifts slightly in her sleep as I crawl back into bed next to her and cuddle against her.

"Talk to Mrs. Weasley?" she asks, her voice raspy.

"No."

"You can't avoid her forever."

"I'm not avoiding her."

She opens one eye and regards me doubtfully.

"Let me just let last night sink in first." 

"Okay," she laughs. "But tell me again you're not avoiding her."

"I'm not."

"Harry…"

I sigh, "Hermione, I can't do anything about the fact that she disapproves of our relationship."

"You can talk to her."

"I could talk to her until I'm blue in the face. What is that going to accomplish?"

"More than silence. More than us sneaking around."

"We're not sneaking around. She knows."

"Are you going to tell her we're sleeping together?"

I shake my head.

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of her business?"

"So what happens when she comes here the next time? We act like nothing has changed between us? I go back to my bed?"

I pull her against me.

"No. Hermione, she knew this was going to happen. I don't feel the need to discuss it with her. Can't we just leave it as an unspoken understanding?"

She brings her hands up to trace along my facial features.

"With Mrs. Weasley?"

I sigh.

"What do I say to her?"

"I don't know, Harry. Maybe explain to her that this isn't something we're doing because we're bored or lonely or horny."

"Wait, that last thing doesn't sound unreasonable…"

She punches me in the shoulder lightly.

"Oh, so now the truth comes out."

"It's part of it," I admit.

"Really?"

"I've never wanted another woman as much as I want you."

"Because you've had so many," she teases.

"It's not about how many I've had. It's about how many have made me feel this way."

"So I'm are exceptional, huh?"

"You're the only one who's ever made me feel like I couldn't breathe and like I could do anything at the same time."

"Wow."

"What?"

"If you'd told me that earlier, we never would have had to go through the whole list fiasco."

I shake my head, chuckling.

"You knew you wanted me all along. The list was just a way to confirm what you already knew."

"You think so?" She is laughing at me now.

"How could you resist me?"

She pretends to think this over and presses her body, warm and willing, closer to mine in response.

"You made it difficult," she says and gives up the fight.

*

I'm reluctant to get out of bed, but we still have lives to lead, places to go, people to see. Work, cooking, cleaning, eating, those things are completely unconcerned with our romantic pursuits, and unimpressed with the fact we'd rather be having horizontal fun. It's humbling actually to know that even though everything changes, more things stay the same as well. Hell, maybe nothing changes at all, but our perceptions of things do.  Here I am, thinking too much again.

Even though I'm not complaining, I got very little sleep last night and trying to pay attention to anything is torture. I make people repeat things to me three times at least, and even so, a good part of it never sinks in. By the time I return home, I'm ready to collapse on the couch, and lie there unconscious for a good many hours.

Apparently, he has the same idea, because half an hour later, he's home and groans when he sees my feet sticking up over the arm rest.

"You stole my spot."

"Tough. First come, first served."

"But you love me."

"So?"

"So, move over."

"You know, if you'd brought your own couch here, like that one your fans shipped to Ron's flat, now we wouldn't have this problem."

"That would be encouraging them. Budge over."

I move a little bit and we squeeze together, side by side.

"I talked to my mom." He says and rubs his eyes.

"And?"

"She wanted to know about Christmas, when I was coming...who was coming with me."

"Christmas is four months away."

"You were going to go home, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I want to be home, at least for Christmas itself. I know my dad would love for me to hang around for a while."

He sighs. "Would you come with me for a couple of days?"

"I don't know, things are weird still, since it's so new."

"It won't be new in four months."

The truth is, I'm scared of Mrs. Weasley. Not scared in that she appears in my nightmares, but scared in the sense I almost feel like she's got a wand at my head just waiting to go off on me. It's not fair, the woman has never been anything but motherly and wonderful to me. But now I'm sleeping with Harry, and that changes everything.

"I have some appearances this week, I was thinking of maybe coming clean about us."

"I thought you'd been dropping hints."

"Yeah, but I'd just like to say that I'm dating you, that we're together. I think it would be better than to show up back home in a couple of weeks and essentially blindside everybody."

I'm quiet, and he apparently finds that disconcerting, because he sits up a bit, resting on his elbows.

"What?"

"Have you thought about telling your manager about this?"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know, damage control?"

"Hermione, now you're just being paranoid. Nobody is going to care what we do on our own time, I don't even think my fans really care whom I date. They probably gave up on the idea it would be them."

"Harry, you know I love you, but that's possibly one of the stupidest things you've ever said."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

*

I still think she's paranoid, but I agree to discuss it with my manager before I announce it to the world. Hermioine also wants time to fill her family in on the change in our relationship, reasoning that it wouldn't be fair for them to find out about it when they turn on the local news.

She presses me to tell my family and friends too and I joke that I'm sure my mother has bemoaned my fate to all of them already. She shakes her head and laughs.

Friday night after work, we go out to dinner and I tell her that my manager is now fully aware of where she and I stand. She arches an eyebrow and waits for me to expand on his reaction.

"He said we should keep it to ourselves.  Ron says so too."

She nods, "I thought he might say that."

"I don't agree with them."

She sighs.

"Harry, why do you think that they said that?"

"Jealuosy?" I joke.

She shakes her head.

"Hermione, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks."

"You're wrong."

"Why?"

"Because you're famous.  You're famous three times over. Image and impressing your fans is important. If you don't do that, do you realize how many angry housewives, old ladies, teens, and preteens will go ballistic?  Not only on you, on me too!  You've already gotten hate mail towards me.  I know it has nothing to do with Quidditch, but the media will trash you until your forced to live at Knockturn alley away from everybody."

"Would I still get to be with you?"

"Yes," she smiles.

"Then that's all I care about."

"You're not being rational, Harry.  I already told you I'm not your 'image type'.  I'm not a hot blonde.  I've got bushy hair and I'm puny - "

"You're a million times more beautiful than anything on this planet."

She blushes severely. "I love you and I want to be with you but I just don't think this is the right time to flaunt what we have.  I'm sure we tell the public soon, but for now just our family and friends.  We have to be rational – "

"I don't want to be rational. I'm in love."

She tries to hide the grin that is spreading across her face. She looks away and tries to remain serious and focused.

"You may be in love with me, but not everyone is."

"A sad oversight on their part," I comment. "But that's rather fortunate for me. I don't like sharing."

She shakes her head. "Honestly, can you please be serious about this?"

"Hermione, it's not a big deal. Honestly. If people don't like it, so what? That doesn't change my feelings for you. Does it change yours for me?"

"No, but that's not what's at stake here."

"So crazy little Kelly or Tiffany or whatever doesn't like it. So what?"

"So there are a lot of crazy people out there. You should know that. That life size sculpture of you made by fans from Bertie Botts Beans is still sitting in Mrs. Weasley's attic.  People have 'Potter Shrines'.  People you don't know have named their baby boy 'Harry' and girl 'Harietta'.  You've gotten mobbed by fans.  They tried to take pieces of hair!"

"So they'd stop, right?"

She sighs, "Harry, you're missing the point."

"What is it?"

"This could come back to bite you in the behind if we go public with it."

I shake my head. 

"I don't care. You're the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me and I don't want to hide it."

"You'll regret it."

"I don't think so."

. . . .

When we get home, I offer to draw her a bath, but she declines, telling me that I need to stop stalling and call Mrs. Weasley.

"If I do, can we talk about that bath?"

She shakes her head, laughing.

"Have you called your family?" I ask her.

"I was just going to."

She steers me in the direction of the living room and then goes upstairs to use her cell phone.

. . . . 

"Hi Mom."

"Harry," she greets me. "Nice that you're returning my call."

"Sorry," I say sheepishly. "I've been busy."

"I've seen Ron several times."

"I'm sorry," I apologize again.

"There must be a reason you're talking now."

"There is."

"Spit it out."

"I told Hermione I love her."

She's got her stone face on and it has a matching stone silence.

"She loves me too."

Isn't that good news?

"And you didn't just say it, did you?" She sighs and I almost expect that she's reaching for a bible or something.

"No."

She sucks in a breath.

"Now what?"

"Now what?" I repeat.

"Yes, Harry. Where do you go from here? Seeing as how you haven't made a commitment to each other. What happens next?"

"I don't know, Mom. Does everything need a linear plan?"

"In this case, it would be nice."

"You like Hermione, don't you?"

"I love her, Harry."

"What's the problem then?"

"She's a near-perfect girl. But people will think she's not right for you."

"Why not?" I demand.

"Because."

"Because we were best friends were so long?"

"That's part of it."

"Because she's not a hot blonde?"

"No."

"Yes," I insist. "That's what it is. You don't want me with her because she's not some hot blond girl that the reporters would love."  I'm being unreasonable, and I know it.

"You know that's not true. It's not about what I think, Harry. It's the way it is. It's what other people think."

"What people? Who?"

"Others."

"In our family, others? My friends? I don't think it's my friends. Who, Mom?"

"People. What do you want, a list?"

No, not that.

"I want to know who has a problem with this."

"You'll see," she says cryptically. "You'll find out, Harry."

I'm frustrated by this conversation and hurry to end it. I tell her I have to go and I'll write her in a few days. I leave with a sense of dread and wonder how Hermione is doing upstairs.

*

"So, do we get to gossip like old times?" My mom wants to know as soon as she picks up the phone.

"I wouldn't mind sitting across the kitchen table from you. And having ice cream."

"So, are you going to tell me what's up, or do I have to beg?"

I settle down on my bed, and pull a pillow up to rest against it. "I just wanted people to know I was seeing Harry, or that we were seeing each other so that nobody has to find out things about me in the newspapers."

"You're a grown woman, you don't need my permission to go on a date."

"I know, mom, I was just hoping you'd be fine with it."

"I am."

"And that we're living together?"

"You were living together for months."

"Yeah, but you know..."

"Hermione, would anything I told you change how you feel or what you were doing on your own time?"

I sigh. "No."

"Then, that's it. Honestly? I think he's a nice boy, he's a hell of a lot nicer than the last one you brought home with the horrid eyepiece. I think he might be in over his head with you, but I've thought that of any guy you've dated."

This makes me laugh. "Why?"

"You're you."

"Oh, alright." 

"How is Mrs. Weasley taking it?"

"Not really all that well. She doesn't like that neither of us is moving out."

"Has she asked you?"

"She asked him. I'm not moving out. I love him, and I'm not using that statement as a defense or anything like that, but come on, isn't it something?"

"Then don't worry about it. Enjoy it, be two young fools in love.  Will you bring him home for Christmas?" She always makes me smile

"I don't know, we haven't decided yet. But I'm definitely coming home for turkey.  You are coming for my birthday, right?"

We chat for a little while longer.  There must be something in my voice that she recognizes as happiness, because while I never expected her to throw a temper tantrum, I did think that she would at least express some disapproval over something regarding my newfound romance. But nothing came, and for that, I'm feeling like I'm on cloud nine right now.

As soon as I'm off the phone, I run downstairs to share the good news with him, but don't find him in the living room, so it's back up the stairs. I hear water running in the bathroom, and I figure he's probably decided to run me that bath. I push the door open, and see him sitting on the edge of the bathtub, splashing his hand in the water, testing its temperature.

"Harry, it's okay, you don't have to do this."

"I'm running a bath for myself." He sighs, takes his wand, and creates a layer of bubbles about a foot thick.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He turns the water off and takes off his shirt, then sheds the rest of his clothes and hops in. I'm left sitting on the toilet. He hasn't invited me in, and looks too upset for this to be your standard seduction, so I wait around, figuring he'll talk to me eventually.

"So, I'm some heart throb or something." He says.

"Right..."

"People are stupid."

"What people?" My heart sinks just a little.

"Just people, around, ones that look normal but then you find out they're stupid."

"There are a lot of stupid people in the world." I agree.

"I'm probably one of them too, for not figuring it out earlier." He takes a breath and submerges his head under the water. At first, I think he'll pop back up any second, but when he stays under for a while, I decide he's hiding.

And I was having such a good day so far.

*

When I emerge from the water, she is still sitting on the toilet seat and I wipe the droplets of water away and open my eyes, my eyelashes spiky.

"I was about to cast a bubble head charm if you stayed down there a second longer."

"Mom thinks people will have a problem with this." I can't look at her.

"They will," she agrees.

"You're okay with that?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No," I sigh. "I guess not."

"The thing is, Harry, people will always have a problem with something. If you're trying to live up to somebody else's standards, are you living up to your own?"

"No, but I don't think it's fair."

"It's not fair. Who said life was fair?"

I groan at the tired old line and she smiles.

"I think I love you," I whisper.

She leans in to kiss me and tangles her fingers in my spiky wet hair.

"I love you too," she says, her shirt damp from pressing against my wet flesh. She pulls away. "Are you going to be able to handle this?"

My hands come up out of the soapy water and reach for her.

"My shirt!" she squeals, laughing when it goes from damp to drenched.

"Mmm," I nod. "You should wear white shirts more often."

"You're terrible!" she chides, still laughing.

I rub my thumb along her rigid nipple, watching fascinated as it responds to my touch.

"I changed my mind," I tell her.

"About?"

"I didn't just draw this bath for myself."

She shakes her head at me. 

"I'm clean."

"No, you're not."

"Harry!" Her voice echoes in the bathroom as I pull her, fully clothed, into the water.

She grabs at me as she struggles to get out of the soapy water but only succeeds in getting more wet.

"My clothes are ruined," she complains.

"Then you should take them off," I suggest.

I help her out of the bath and then out of her sopping wet clothing and when she is as naked as I am, we climb back into the bath together.

I grab a washcloth and squeeze some body wash onto it and take my time as I rub it against her skin.

It isn't long before my attentions achieve their desired effect and she grinds her lower body against mine, silently begging me to stop teasing her.

"I need you," I breathe against her neck, my breath as hot and damp as the steam enveloping the room.

"No," 

I sigh, frustrated. 

"Not… not in here."

I breathe a sigh of relief.  She moans and I lift myself away from her body and shakily get out of the bathtub. I hold a hand out to her and lead her into my bedroom.

"It's still clean," she notices and flashes a grin at me before I hungrily kiss her and remove the grin.

She pushes me toward the bed and makes short work of uttering her spell and then I'm inside her, thrusting deep and withdrawing and she wraps her legs around me and urges me on.

When we stop moving and I roll off of her and pull her to my side, she kisses my temple.

"Come home with me at Christmas," I whisper, half-asleep.

"That won't put your mom in a very festive mood."

"She'll get over it. I want you there. I want to celebrate with you and be with you and I want them to know you and know that they're wrong."

"Who?"

I sigh, "I don't know. But I need to, Hermione."

"So I'm your test?" she laughs, her voice sleepy.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I feel like I should be."

"Because your fans don't love me?"

"Yeah."

"But you do?"

"Yeah."

She kisses my eyelids closed.

"That's all I can ask for."


	17. Bumpy

A/N: This is not an excuse.  Well, maybe it is.  But this chapter was a little rushed because I have a lot going on now with school.  I realized I hadn't update in a while, so here's something.  (P.S. I got accepted to college!)

The Quidditch season is well under way and Harry is gone again.  This time for three full weeks, and I start to realize what smokers must go through while trying to quit.  I'm addicted to Harry.

In an effort to tear my mind away from him, I spend a lot of time with Lavender.  Unfortunately, she had started to see Ron again, to Mrs. Weasley's dismay, and he is all she could talk about.  We sit at her table, eating while she blunders on about Ron and I try to listen.

"So anyway, that's why I'm only eating strawberries for a while."

"Huh?  What?" 

"Were you paying attention?"

"I'm…yes, you said Ron likes to cuddle after."  I try and save myself.

"That was five minutes ago." Lavender snatches my yogurt from me and looks me in the eye.  "Come to think of it, you should stick to a fruit too."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know…"

I stare at her blankly.  She releases a loud, exaggerated sigh and shakes her head.

"For the taste?  For him?"  She continues to hint.  Evidently she does not realize that I am completely clueless.

"Lavender, what are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes.  "If you eat lots of fruit then the taste develops in your intimate area.  For him."

I respond to this by dropping my jaw on the table.

"That can not possibly be true!"

"It is."

"No it's not."

"Listen, it could be fun, especially since you guys are shagging like rabbits – "

"Lavender!"

"And especially since your birthday is in two days – "

"Harry said he's not even sure he could make it.  He'll whine to the manager and try his best, but they have a big game the next day and he has to tr – "

"Oh, he'll make it."  Lavender winked.  "And it would be a big surprise that night when he tastes – "

"Lavender!  I'm telling you, not possible.  How would the flavor – "

"Hermione, trust me."

"Trust YOU?" I grin sarcastically.

"Seriously, who would you trust more on matters in the bedroom.  Or on a desk.  Or in a library.  Or on a broom – "

"Do I want to hear this?"

"Who says it's not possible?"

"Well, me."

"And who knows more about sex.  Me, or you?"

An hour later I leave her flat, making a mental note to find out Harry's favorite fruit.

*

"What are you getting her?" Ron asks, shoving his sweaty robes into a bag.

We are sitting on our beds at the over-priced inn, taking a break from a strenuous practice session.  We would be playing the Wasps tomorrow and the Tornados in two days, and I was sitting cross-legged and wringing my hair trying to think of ways to weasel out of practice so I could be with Hermione on her birthday.  That is when Ron decided to make my life more enjoyable and make me realize I had no gift.  He sees my blank stare and shakes his head.

"That is not good."

"Ron you've got to help me."

"You're the only one who knows more about her than I do.  Way more." He added with a wink.

"Shut up.  Like that information would help any.  I can't give her sex as my present!"

"I know what I'm giving her."

"What?"

"It's a secret."

"Would she love it?"

"You bet."

I look at him with my best sad puppy-dog face.

"You look like a constipated monkey."

"Ron, I can't think of anything that's good enough to be hers.  And I can't get her anything that is.  I can't tear down the stars, I can't gather the oceans, I can't pluck every rose from – "

"Mate, you've got to stop before I vomit.  Just get her some jewelry for Merlin's sake."

"Not good enough.  A 50 foot diamond is not good enough."

"How about 51 feet?"  He sees the murderous look in my eye and flushes.  "I'm just kidding, mate.  How about a book?"

"She knows everything. She's read everything.  I can't just give her a BOOK."

Ron looks at me pityingly.  "Alright.  You can give her the one I was going to give her."

"How do I know it's not just some cheap sneakoscope or something?"

"Just guess what it is."

"I hate guessing games."

"What did Hermione nag you about for months before you two moved in?."

I stare at him.

"She was dropping obvious hints all last year, and she's asked you directly about ten times, and you shot her down each time because you 'couldn't handle it right now'."

My mind clicks into place.  "You got her a PUPPY!?"

"Yeah.  Problem is, I already told her I was getting her a puppy."

"You got her a puppy when you KNEW I didn't want one?"

"Harry, she wants a puppy.  It won't kill you, you know."

I sigh.  "Fine.  But it can't be from me if she knows you're going to give it to her."

"I can get her some book or something and give it to her first.  I'll tell her that I wasn't able to find a puppy.  She'll be down, and you come and save the day.  Acting completely oblivious, of course."

I rub my chin.  "That might work…in some alternate universe, maybe!  Did you happen to forget Hermione is smart?"

"I know it will work.  Trust me."

"Trust YOU?"

"Have I ever let you down before?"

"Yes." I say bluntly.

"It was rhetorical, Harry! Now we need to find a way to sneak out of here for her party."

* 

The bright sun hit my face and I turn over and hide in my pillow.  My body is spread out on the bed, trying to fill up the space that has been empty for three weeks.

"Happy birthday, sunshine!"

I groan and open one eye to see Lavender bouncing at the foot of my bed like a disturbed toddler.

"How the hell did you get in my house?"

"We need to get the party started!  No old people are going to make it, so we could have all the booze we want!  It's going to be the wildest luncheon in all of Europe."

"I said I wanted a luncheon, not an orgy.  And it's too early."

"It's 8 AM, Hermione.  And it will be a luncheon.  Just not a boring one."

"Gimme an hour."

"I don't think so, brainiac."  She mercilessly pulls off my blanket and tries to roll me off the bed.

"Okay, okay!  You're insane, you know that?"

"Go wash, I'll be downstairs haggling with the strip-wizard."

I'm halfway to the bathroom by the time I realized what she said.  I swivel around.

"The WHO!?" I demand.

"Just kidding!" and she flies down the stairs in a wave of perkiness.  I silently pray that she was really joking.  Last thing I need is for someone to find out I invited a strip-wizard to the house of Harry Potter.  

As I make my way to the bathroom my cell phone rings.

"Happy Birthday!"

"Mom!  Are you coming?"

"Your father and I can't.  A friend of ours had an uncle who died yesterday and we have to go to the wake."

I sigh in disappointment.  Now there was nothing standing between Lavender and some crazy midday rave that she was planning.

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry.  I miss you."

"I miss you too." In the background I hear my dad whining about wanting to talk to me.

"Your father wants to talk to you.  Here – " There is a soft swish as the phone is handed off.

"Happy Birthday, sweetie!"

"Thanks daddy."

"You will be coming for Christmas, correct?" he asks quickly.  I raise my eyebrows.

"I might.  It's only September though. Why?"

"We miss you."

I stay silent for a little while.  He speaks up.  "Hermione?"

"Is this about me and Harry?"

Another pause.

"Hermione – "

"Dad, I thought you were okay with this!"

"Hermione," he takes a breath. "I just don't want to lose you.  You've been hanging around your wizard friends so much since you were eleven that it's like you're pushing us away…I feel like they know my baby better…I know they are great people and your fully grown, but … "

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

I hate to disappoint Harry, but I love my parents.  They've loved my being a witch, surprisingly, despite me spending most of my holidays with the Weasleys during Hogwarts and moving to a wizarding city.  I'm eternally grateful for that.

"I'm coming home for Christmas."

I hear him smile on the other end of the line.  "I love you."

"I love you too."

When I hang up the phone a few minutes later, I hear Lavender screech.

"Lav?"

"Don't come down here!" she calls back.  Then she screams to whoever else is down there.  "I said strip-WIZARD, not WITCH!"

By one o' clock I had kick the scantily clad woman out of the house and guests start arriving.  Fred and George hand me a shaking, squeaking package wrapped in red foil paper on their way in.  I lock it in the closet, where I hid their last gift, a dancing leprechaun statuette that yells suggestive phrases to any female that passes.  I only hope that this present won't escape the box and stomp on my coat like the leprechaun did.  

Tonks helps Lavender with her kegs of firewhiskey, looking sheepish but excited.  As soon as it is set up, the noise level increases a few thousand decibels and I just stand around idle, hoping for Harry and Ron to show.  Crookshanks can't take the pounding noise, so he politely leaves the party by clawing through a group of hulky wizards I don't know and out the door that someone left open.  I feel extremely out of place in the various drunken situations unfolding around me.  Serves me right for being Lavender's friend.

"OH he-LLO!" a guy no older than 18 stumbles up to me.

"Who are you?"

"Whoever you want me to be, baby!" he warbles, then he releases a full belch from deep in his chest.  I smile politely before turning around and walking away, praying he doesn't follow.  Luckily he had already forgotten about me and seemed to be hitting on my sofa.

"Come on, Harry…" 

In the meantime I see Lupin is standing by the television, looking as lonely and out of place as I was.  I decide it's because he is by far the oldest person here, and perhaps he's missing how he and his "Marauders" used to party.  

"Hi." I greet him and walk over.  

"Hello Hermione." He smiles at me warmly through his graying beard.  "How are you?"

"Just wonderful.  You?"

"Same."  He is still smiling.  "Waiting for Harry?"

"Actually, yes…"

He winks.  "You two are very lucky."

"I think so too."

"You remind me of…Harry's parents…"

My voice catches in my throat.  I never knew much about the Potters, except what I had learned from reading, and what little Harry cared to tell us.  Harry's parents were a taboo subject, and always have been.  Talking about them, even when Harry was not around, makes me a little anxious.  

"How so?" 

"Well, when they first met they hated each other to death."

I raise my eyebrow, but then I remember how in first year Harry and Ron found me annoying and bossy.  With good reason, but I still think they could have met me halfway and attempted to be nice and work hard or something.

"But you two got over that very quickly.  It took James and Lily seven years to realize they could be friends.  Took you a heck of a lot shorter."

I nod.

"Then, they became friends.  Good friends.  The best.  The only reason she was never dubbed a Marauder was because she insisted on following rules.  Like you.  But James loosened her up a bit…and the sparks flew."

Lupin was right.  Our paths were similar.  I'd learned from the Hogwarts trophy room that Harry's mother was a top student, and Harry's father was a trouble magnet.  He held the record for "most times able to sneak dungbombs into the trophy room", which was inscribed sloppily over a Dueling Tournament cup.   Harry is probably not as jaunty as what I hear about his father, but he is definitely a trouble-magnet.

"People had trouble accepting they loved each other too, you know.  Specifically, Lily's family."

"I can imagine.  Those Dursley trolls Harry had to live with…."

"But you know, they were almost as strong as you and Harry are."

That takes me by surprise.  James and Lily Potter were practically legends.  Granted, so is Harry, but how could I live up to that?  It's a lot of pressure to be going on with.  

Suddenly I hear the doorknob jiggle.  My eyes grow wide and meet Lupin's for the first time.

"Go on." He prods me.  I squeeze his hand, then make my way to the door as it swings open further.

"THE FUN HAS ARRIVED!" Ron's deep voice announces.

"Wooo!" Lavender yells drunkenly.

Harry appears after him and I practically teleport into his arms.  Our lips close on each other for an eternity, with several muffled "Awwww"s in the background.  I didn't care.  He made it.

*

I take a deep breath, smelling her flowery scent, then I force myself to pull away and look at her face.  

"Hey."

"Hi."

She hugs me again.  "Thank you for coming."

I hug her back.  "Thank you for existing."

"You see?  Harry has been spouting that poetic garbage for three weeks.  'Oh, woe is me, I want to give her the stars!'" Ron mocked.  "Hermione, please shag the boy soon, because if he talks about flowers and love one more time I am beating him over the head with a Bludger."

"RON!" she cries.

"Hi Hermy."  He locks his arms around her and squeezes.  They laugh.

"So, you want to give me the stars, huh?" she winks.  I blush.

"I did not say that."

"Yes you did, mate."

"Shut up, Ron."

"Awww." Hermione patted my cheek.  "He's blushing."

I swept her up off her feet and kissed her deeply in my arms.

"Harry!" she gasps.

"Now who's blushing?"

It isn't long before the two of us are getting antsy, waiting for the firewhiskey to run out so everyone would leave.  It isn't until almost six that the keg finally empties.  Not too long afterwards, people start leaving.  After Melissa leaves, the last one, Ron shuts the door.

"All right, now the fun can begin." He cackles and holds Lavender close.

"Not in my house it doesn't." I say, ushering them to the front door.  They laugh and apparate back to Merlin knows where, to do Merlin knows what.  I turn to Hermione.

"So how'd the presents turn out?"

Her beautiful face falls slightly and I know Ron had made his rehearsed, unfortunate announcement.  "Not bad…" Then she fingers my shirt collar.  "What am I getting from you?"

I fight down the primal urge that has been building up in me for three weeks.

"Be right back."

"What – "

Before she could finish, I bolt to the door and go outside.  I pick up the box, poked full of holes for breathing, and take it inside.  Hermione's eyes widen.

"What is – "

"Open it."

"Wait.  Did you get it at the twins' shop?"

"No." I laugh.

She cautiously lifts a flap on the box and peers inside.  Suddenly a smile explodes on her face as she carefully lifts out a chubby brown-and-white terrier.  

"HARRY!" she squeals, probably scaring the poor puppy to death, but I enjoy it.

"You like him?"

"I love him!"

"More than me?"

Her smile fades into a seductive grin.  "I don't know…have you talked to Ron?" She slowly puts the puppy on the sofa, where it walks in a confused circle and falls asleep on a pillow.  

"I have no idea what you are talking about."  I lie, but I can't stop the smile that is pulling at my mouth.

"Oh…"she comes so close I can feel her body heat through our clothing.  "…Really?"

"Well, I might have gotten a…." she breathes on my neck, right below my ear.  "….hint."

"Well, I think I should get another present.  Since you cheated."

"Greedy, aren't we?"

"Yes.  You are all mine."  Her hands travel lower than comfort.  

"Hermione, I have a game tomorrow – "

"What time is it?"

I glance at my watch.  For no reason, because I knew what I was going to do, regardless.  "I love you."

"That's not the time."

"Who cares?"  I carry her up the stairs and shut the bedroom door.

*

A few hours later we are both naked and lying under the covers.  Harry had brought up my new puppy and now it was scampering around on the bed, climbing over the hills on the blanket our tangled legs created.  He made the occasional whimper as he fell over Harry's thigh.

"He's so cute."

"He's alright."

"You have some competition, Potter." I laugh.

"What are you going to name him?"

I watch the puppy maneuver his way to our pillow, where he curls up in my messy hair.  Harry picks him up and places him on my tummy.

"I don't know.  I'm not good at giving names.  I had a doll when I was five named Hatshepsut."

"Hatshepsut?"

"Fine.  You name him."

"How about Harry Jr.?"

"Everyone in England born after we graduated Hogwarts was named Harry."

"Good point" He made a face.  "Well, how about 'I'm late and the team is going to have my ass'?"

"Doesn't quite roll off the tongue."

"Oh, and Hatshepsut does?"

Harry rolls to his side and buried his face in my neck. 

"I have to go."

"Okay…"

"I hate to leave you…"

"Me too."

I watch silently from the bed as he gets up and gets dressed.  Then he makes his way back to the bed and kisses me on the forehead.

"I love you."  Then he pats my puppy.  "And I think you're okay."

"I love you, Harry." I laugh.  Then he is gone, leaving an empty void were his warm glow had been just minutes earlier..

I get up and cradle the half-asleep puppy.  "Well it's just you and me.  Let's go meet Crookshanks."

After I slip on some clothes I put him on the floor, since it looks like this puppy has some sort of hyperactive disorder and would rather scramble everywhere himself than be carried.  He slips clumsily on the hardwood and crashes into the floor.  

"I told you.  You should've let me carry you."

The puppy whimpers indignantly and continued to slide and scuffle down the hallway.  He stops and stares at the top of the stairs.

"Oh, now you want help." I chuckle and pick him up.

Crookshanks is sitting lazily in the kitchen, as usual, licking a paw.  At the first sight of the puppy he bristles and glares.

"Crookshanks, this is – " I think about how clumsy he was upstairs. " – Bumpy."

Crookshanks stared like it was the dumbest thing anyone had ever fathomed.

"Oh shut up, I don't see any suggestions coming from you."  I set the puppy down next to him to see how they would react.  

The puppy slides on the tile floor and crashes face first into Crookshanks stomach.  I guess Crookshanks realizes the name makes sense now.  He glares at Bumpy, but Bumpy is oblivious as he hoists himself up and scitters along his tail.  Crookshanks looks utterly offended and walks away into the living room.

"Don't worry, Bumpy.  He'll come around."

POP!

I run into the living room with Bumpy in my arms.  Crookshanks gives us a fleeting look and heads back into the kitchen.

"Hermione!  Happy Birthday!  I'm sorry we couldn't make it."

Mrs. Weasley's head is floating in our fireplace.

"Hi, thank you, its fine."

"What is that?" her eyes fall on Bumpy.  "It's adorable!"

"His name is Bumpy.  It was a present."

"I was under the impression that Harry didn't want a dog."

"It was a present from Harry."

There is an inscrutable expression on Mrs. Weasley's face that I can't place.  It doesn't look negative, but she doesn't look pleased, either.

"Is something wrong?"

"No dear, nothing.  He's cute."

"I know."

Awkwards silence.

"Well, I have to go run some errands for Mr. Weasley.  I will talk to you later, all right?"

"Great, see you."

She disappeared and I sat on our sofa to think.  

"She doesn't like that Harry gave you to me." I say to Bumpy.  He sniffs indifferently and squirms until I put him back on the sofa.  

"I wish I didn't care either…"


	18. Family Reunion

Jump to mid-December.

"So you have to go on the 20th?"   
  
"19th." I tell him.  
  
"And you won't be able to come to The Burrow until the 28th.  That's a week." He sulks.  
  
"It's actually 9 days..."  
  
"Wonderful."  
  
I had just told Harry about my decision to go home for Christmas.  Harry was disappointed, but I pointed out that he'd spent more time away from me than 9 days, it's already been proven that neither of us would combust without the company of the other.

We walk down the aisles of Prince Kleimus's Kingdom of Everything, a wizarding department store that actually did have everything.  Everything from pets to sporting goods to tiny fairies hat play your pianos for you graced the surprisingly organized shelves.  We wander aimlessly, trying to shop for Chrismat presents (relatively late), even though I've suggested only a hundred times that Harry should just give everyone gift certificates or money, the gift that truly keeps giving.  He insists that he needs to find something perfect for everyone.

"Since when did YOU become the perfectionist?"  
  
"They'll expect something big, especially since we're both doing so well now."  
  
"Well, we could pick up a hooker or two if you'd like." I joke.  
  
He shoots me a look that said "Stop hanging out with Lavender.", then holds up some shirts. "I have no idea about sizes. What's a large? How large do you have to be to wear a large? Is it like a large, large or tall, large?"  
  
"Harry, please give them cash."  
  
"It doesn't seem personal."  
  
"Fine, I'll give them cash on your behalf."  
  
"I thought women liked shopping."  
  
"Yes we do, but we know what a large is."  
  
He moves away from the women's clothing lines, and drags me back into other aisles. The bookshelves are our next victim. I can't believe how many different gift boxes featuring Harry Potter there are lined up at the front.  
  
"What would you want to read?" He asks me as he walks down, past the bestseller shelf which contained primarily his own staring face and shining scar.  
  
"Are you buying a book for me?"  
  
"No, for mom."  
  
"Oh, because I was going to suggest the Kama Sutra."  
  
"Where's that aisle?" He looks around anxiously.  
  
"Harry, if you don't know what people like to read, then you can't buy them something you'd want yourself. It's such a cop out. Give them a gift certificate, they can get a book they like."  
  
"Should I give up?"  
  
"You shouldn't have waited until it was so late." We're now standing by the magazines and I see his goofy grin gracing the cover of a magazine, so I pick that up. "Can you buy me this?" I smile at him.  
  
"No, I don't have twenty Sickles or whatever it costs."  
  
"Liar."  
  
"I thought you weren't a fangirl."  
  
"I'm not, but they are." I point to the three girls standing behind him, looking at the magazine cover, then back at his face, trying to figure out if this is indeed their lucky day.  
  
"Ohmygosh!" One of them yells out and I know they've hit the jackpot.  
  
He tries to calm them down, and promises he'll not only autograph the magazine for them, but he'll also pay for their copies so long as they keep a low profile and let us get out of the store quietly. They're excited and hanging on to his every word, which gives me a chance to pick up a book for some bedtime reading.  _Magical Journalism._  
  
"That's not what you said you wanted." He says when we make it out and he glances at the cover.  
  
"It wasn't that kind of store." I laugh.

"Can you please come home with me?  Please?" he begs suddenly.

"Harry, I'll be going there later…"

"I know.  I'm just whining.  But I have something for you."  He pulls a small package out of a bag and hands it to me.

"It's not Christmas yet."

"It's not for Christmas."

I open the package, revealing a small mirror.  It seems vaguely familiar, but I can't quite recall what it did.  "What is it?"

"It's a two-way mirror we can use to communicate.  We don't have to Floo all the time, just say my name clearly to the mirror and we can talk.  There are two and I have the other one.  Sirius gave me one like this back in fifth year."  
  


"Oh Harry….Thank you!" I hug him.  A wizard cell phone.  "Harry, how much did this cost."

"Doesn't matter.  No price is too high if I want to be with you."

That just gave me the impression that they cost a fortune.  I ran a finger along the intricately designed frame.  Then I clasped it in both hands and spoke very clearly.  "Harry Potter."

Harry pulls out his own mirror and looks into it.  In my mirror Harry's grinning face appears.  He waves goofily.

"Hi Harry.  Do you still love me?" I say into the mirror.  I hear my voice coming through his mirror and I know that he's looking at my face right now too.

"Always, Hermy."  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
Mom is smiling when I reach The Burrow , and I wonder briefly whether it's because she's gotten over my living arrangements or because she doesn't see Hermione by my side and thinks she has an opportunity to wear me down.  
  
"Hi," I say, feeling strangely awkward around her.  
  
"Hi," she says and motions for me to follow her into the kitchen.  It's cleaner than I remember, but still carries that familiar smell of home.

She pours me some tea and announces that Ron would be coming tonight and Ginny will be coming tomorrow or the next day.  The twins had arrived earlier but left in a hurry for some "important business" and would be back in a bit.  Bill and Charlie were outside de-gnoming the backyard but both had things to attend to at their respective jobs so they would be leaving early, and Mr. Weasley would be home late because he was called off on emergency Ministry affairs.

"How is your puppy?"

"Fine.  He and Crookshanks are at Lavender's for the holidays." And I hope that Lavender is not finding ways to corrupt our puppy.

"So.  Where's Hermione?"  
  
"She decided she should go be with her family for awhile. I thought I told you that."  
  
"You haven't told me much of anything lately," she says and I sigh.  
  
"Are we going to do this again?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Fight about my relationship with Hermione."  
  
"What's the point?" she asks. "Is it going to change your mind?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then I'm not going to say another word about it."  
  
I eye her warily but don't pursue the matter further.  
  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
  
I soon find out that she's agreed to keep her opinion to herself because she's recruited some of her friends to voice theirs.

  
It looks like she has invited every person I've ever known to dinner and they waste no time in asking me about Hermione.  
  
"So what's she like?" Ms. Fortescue asks, kissing me on the cheek.  Apparently she and my mother had become good friends over the years.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"This girl your mother tells me you're living with."  
  
"She's great.  She's Hermione."  
  
She raises an eyebrow and I know my mother has filled her in.  
  
One after another, various friends of my mother's come up to share their opinion about how living alone has changed me.  
  
"You were such a good boy," they say, as though I'm now knocking over convenience stores and hanging out in crack houses.  
  
I sigh, "We're not doing anything wrong."

Ron and the twins snicker and I fulfill my obligation to kick them each under the table.  
  
The ladies look from my mother to me and back again and shake their heads sadly, as though someone has died.  
  
"Why didn't she come with you?" another asks. "If you were committed to each other, she'd be with you."  
  
"She has family she wanted to see," I reason.  
  
"Then why aren't you with her?"  
  
"We don't need to be with each other constantly," I say simply, under the illusion that this reasoning will be logical to them. Of course, it isn't.

"Why don't we leave Harry and Hermione alone?" Ron defends me.  "They're together, why can't we just leave it at that?"  
  
Each time my mother walks by, the conversation stops and I ponder this while I eat my dinner.  
  
How many people has she told, exactly?  
  
By the end of the evening I'm exhausted and excuse myself so that I can use the mirror to see Hermione before going to bed.  
  
I just reach Ron's room and pick up the mirror when my mom knocks on the door.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
She sticks her head in the door.  
  
"I just wanted to make sure you had enough blankets."  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"It was nice of everyone to come by, wasn't it?"  
  
"Yeah," I smile politely.  
  
"Everyone was saying that you seem tired, drained."  
  
"I got up early."  
  
"I don't think that's what they mean."  
  
"Then why don't they say what they mean?" I snap and she looks hurt.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"What's wrong, Harry?"  
  
"What did you tell them about Hermione, Mom?"  
  
"About Hermione? Nothing really."  
  
I shake my head at her.  
  
She sighs, "Harry, you know I'm worried about you."  
  
"Yeah, I got that."  
  
"What do you want me to tell them? They ask me how you're doing. They ask if you've found a nice girl…"  
  
"Here's an idea. Tell them 'Yes' and leave it at that."  
  
"You young people here don't think the same way other people do."  
  
"Yeah, I've noticed," I comment dryly.  
  
"What is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"Do you know what your friend Madame Malkin said to me at dinner?"  
  
She waits until I tell her.  
  
"She said it was heartbreaking that I didn't take up with a nice, lively girl that could make me happy and let me have some fun. What do you think she meant, Mom?"  
  
"I'm sure she didn't mean what you assume she meant."  
  
"Oh, really?"  
  
"Harry, you have to understand that you're a world wide celebrity.  Your image is everywhere and a lot of people are not liking your image at this point.  It's your own safety they are worried about."   
  
"What's my image?  Huh?  I'm some brainless heartthrob that shouldn't have anyone except some thin, tall, leggy blond bimbo?  Are small, bushy-haired geniuses too inferior for me?"   
  
"Harry!" she admonishes me.  
  
I glare at her.  
  
"You know what, whatever you told them, I want you to fix it. Tell them you were wrong. Because if Hermione arrives to this and they act in anyway even resembling how they acted tonight, not to mention worse, we'll march straight back to London."  
  
"You're blaming me?"  
  
"They're not giving her, us… any of it, a chance. I think we should at least have that much. Especially from you."  
  
She backs out of my room and closes the door firmly. I feel a little guilty, but it needed to be said.  Ron opens the door a second later.

"I'm sorry, mate.  They're all being stupid."

"Thanks, Ron."

"If they weren't all nice old ladies, I'd give them all good kicks right up their saggy behinds."

"Yeah."

"Hermione is twice the woman that any of them would pair you up with.  You are lucky.  You both are.  And you're not going to let all that go just because a gaggle of old ladies told you to.  Right?"

"Definitely."

I decide to leave Hermione in peace for one night and lay down still clothed and close my eyes, hoping that I'll wake up somewhere else.  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hi."  
  
He sounds pretty dejected in the morning when I look in my mirror.   
  
"Having a rough time?" I ask and sit up in bed.  
  
"I'm just, seeing things for the first time or something. And I yelled at my mom, which means I'll have to grovel later so I'm definitely wishing I were someplace else right now."  
  
"It's Christmastime, Harry, it's always nicest to be home."  
  
"I could be home with you."  
  
"In a few days.  How is Ron?  And the twins?  Is Ginny there yet?"  
  
He sighs melodramatically and I almost chuckle.  I know he's about to go into a long tirade, so I tell him I'm still in bed, haven't been to the bathroom yet, haven't eaten a thing and he shows his generous and merciful side by letting me go.  
  
I love the smell of my mom's cookies baking in the oven. She always gets up early during the holidays and by the time I wake up, the aroma permeates the entire upstairs hallway. It's such a warm, homey feeling.   
  
I get dressed quickly and run downstairs to the kitchen. I see a couple of batches are already done and I grab a cookie in each hand, then go look for the paper.  
  
"Are you going to have that for breakfast?" Mom comes up behind me.  
  
"Yesh." I mumble with my mouth crammed with cookie.  
  
"I can make you real food. What do you want? Eggs? Pancakes?"  
  
"Cookeesh."  
  
"Do you want milk with that?" Ah, so she's given up on the breakfast.  It used to take a lot longer when I was a kid.  
  
"Juice."  
  
"What am I going to do with you on a sugar high?"  
  
"Run around the house, chasing me, yelling about how I'll have to stand in the corner for ever and ever until infinity?"  
  
"Did I do that?" She laughs.  
  
"Once. When I brought in the branches from the yard and then chopped them up in the blender, killing the blades." I look up at her.  
  
"Oh, yes, I remember. Why did you do that anyway?"  
  
"I wanted to prove trees were vegetables by putting them in a smoothie.  I mean, they grow out of the ground and all." I look at her devilishly, until she shakes her head at me with a couple of tsk tsk sounds for good measure.  
  
"So why didn't you bring him?"  
  
She's been respectful of my privacy, and even though I've talked about Harry a little since I've been back, I find myself more reserved than I have been in the past. It might be that I feel it'll all vanish if I open my mouth and spill my secrets.  
  
"I thought he should go home for Christmas. I'm thinking of spending a few days there too."  
  
"Okay."  
  
I skip a beat while she mixes some batter in a bowl. "The thing is, you seem to be fine with us, or at least that's how you're acting. Mrs. Weasley is still not taking it well."  
  
"And he's not sure he can handle it? Being with you?"  
  
"I don't know. I know he wants to be with me. I know he loves me, it's not something I think he said for fun. But it's got to be draining, sitting there, listening to person after person tell you that it's more trouble than it's worth."  
  
"Love is always worth it." She tells me, her tone firm. "I have a daughter and I'd never trade that for anything in the world."  
  
"Now you're going to make me cry." I say with tears already pooling in my eyes. "I love you."  
  
"I love you too. You want to bake with me or are you too upper class now?"  
  
It's such an easy choice.  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
I'm almost at the bottom of the stairs when I hear voices emerging from the kitchen. More than just my mother's. I shake my head and look down at myself to make sure I'm presentable for company and then wander into the kitchen for some juice.  
  
"Good morning," my mother greets me, all sunshine and lollipops for the benefit of her company.  
  
"Morning," I mumble.  
  
"Harry, you remember Ms. Fortescue? And this is her daughter, Stephanie."  
  
I give my mother a look and smile at Ms. Fortescue and Stephanie, who is about my age.   
  
"Good morning," I say to both of them, reaching for a juice glass.  
  
"Good morning, Harry." Ms. Fortescue nudges her daughter and Stephanie smiles shyly at me.  
  
"What are your plans for the day, Harry?" my mother asks.  
  
"I don't know. I was going to hang around with Ron until Ginny comes over…"  
  
"Maybe you can spend time with for a while?  I know for a fact Ron won't be getting up for hours."  
  
Why do I have to entertain her? I want to ask. It's not Stephanie's fault though so I shrug, "Yeah, sure."  
  
"Oh, you don't have to," she says, speaking for the first time.  
  
She sounds embarrassed at the situation and I can't help but feel badly for her.  
  
"It's fine," I assure her. "Besides," I wink, "It's better than hanging you with these two all day."  
  
Those two choose to ignore me and I smile at Stephanie.  
  
"I'm just going to run upstairs and take a quick shower and get ready. I'll be back in a few minutes."  
  
She smiles appreciatively and I run up the stairs.  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
  
"I've been to lots of your games," Stephanie says as we walk around idley  
  
"Oh, yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. I thought you should have won that last one against the Tornadoes."  
  
"Thank you. But I do think I was a bit…distracted…that game." I say, remembering Hermione's birthday activities.   
  
"Oh.  It's just that I remembered you… from school. You were always so nice. I wanted you to win, that's all."  
  
"Thank you," I say again and I stop to look over at her. "We went to school together?"  
  
"You don't remember me, do you?" She laughs self-deprecatingly. "That's okay, I wasn't very memorable."  
  
"Awww, I'm sure that's not true. I just see a lot of people now," I apologize. "I have a hard time remembering faces."  
  
"You were nice to me," she says again. "You helped me pick up all my books when I dropped them outside the library and you used to stop and talk to me when I was sitting by myself."  
  
"Oh, wow.  You were that girl a year younger than us.  Hufflepuff" I shake my head in disbelief. "I never knew your name!"  
  
She laughs again.  
  
"It's okay.  Not many people noticed me.  And other girls pretty much avoided me."  
  
"I'm sorry I never asked."  
  
She shrugs. As she does so, her hair falls forward into her eyes and she brushes it away. She looks up at me and I notice the deep, chocolate colour of her eyes. It's an unusual colour when paired with her pale blonde hair. She's got a sprinkling of freckles across her tiny nose and her lips look soft and ... and I have a girlfriend, so I turn my attention back to where I'm walking.  
  
But I wonder momentarily why I didn't notice her back in Hogwarts.  
  
"I know who Hermione is too," she tells me and I lift my eyebrows in surprise.  
  
"Lots of girls didn't like her much either."  
  
"No," I agree. "They didn't."  
  
"They're loss.  Hermione was decent to me.  They'll get theirs," she says and I laugh at the determination in her voice.  
  
"What, are you planning to spike their drinks with a Weasley Whizard Wheezes Specialty?"  
  
She doesn't comment and I can't stop laughing.  
  
"Does your mother know you're this devious?"  
  
"I'm a nice girl," she tells me. "As long as I'm good in front of her…"  
  
I shake my head.  
  
"You're not going to tell, are you?"  
  
"Me? No, I think I've learned that the less they know, the better.  But my advice to you is to just avoid Lavender Brown.  She and Hermione are friends now."  
  
I sigh, thinking about my current situation with my mother and she looks over at me.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
I shake myself out of it and nod.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I'm sure you don't remember, but I'm a good listener."  
  
I laugh, "I don't. But thank you, I'll keep that in mind."  
  
"Great" she smiles. "Anytime you need to escape your mother and I need to escape mine, then?"  
  
"Deal."


	19. Fall From Grace

A/N: Someone mentioned a beta reader and I am thinking this is a pretty good idea, so anyone who has free time and can beta read pretty efficiently (like, take about a night to read my drafts over) please email me at booga_booga_booga@excite.com Thanks!  I know I'm slipping typos, grammatical errors, and all that other stuff in by accident, so sorry, hopefully that will be taken care of soon.

The three days I've been home have been some of the best days I've had in a long time.   
  
Unlike a lot of people,I actually liked living with my parents. I adored my mother, and I was her only daughter, her baby, and that warranted special attention. I loved my father, and not just because I was supposed to love him, but because he was a great guy who let me tag along to work when I was little and probably very annoying.  
  
We have a great time baking, shopping for the world's largest turkey, walking around town complaining about the wet and miserable weather. I'm supposed to go to the Burrow in a couple of days and I really, really want to stay.  
  
I take my mirror and he instantly is reflected in its smooth surface.  
  
"Hey, what are you up to?"  
  
"Hermione, hi. Hang on a sec." He says, then turns away, but his voice still comes through. "Can you guys excuse me a minute?  Okay, I'm all yours."  
  
"Did they bring in 72 virgins and they're making you choose a wife?" I tease.  
  
"Um, no. I'm with the Weasley clan.  Ginny finally made it."  
  
"Great, how is she? And you sound better than you have the past few days. Must be good now."  
  
"Ginny's great.  She's got a nose ring, but great.  And it is good now." He sounds relieved.

"A nose ring!?"

"Tonks suggested it and she went for it."

"Wow"

"Yeah."  
  
"Listen, Harry, would you mind terribly if I ended up staying at home? I mean, at my parent's."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
"I'm just in a really good place right now. It's so relaxing to be home and packing my stuff, going for a few days to somewhere where I'll be stressed out and you'll be stressed out and Mrs. Weasley's holiday cheer deflating like a helium balloon sounds unwise."  
  
"Yeah, well, maybe, but it's a long time."  
  
"I'll make it worth your while when you get back."  
  
"Well, in that case..."  
  
"Seriously, are you okay with this, or should I go out there anyway?"  
  
"I wish you'd come, but it's okay. It's fine. She was actually pleasant this morning, so that's something."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"It's fine. I'm gonna go, we were busy making fun of Ginny."  
  
I laugh. "Be nice, okay?"  
  
"I'm trying."  
  
"I'll see you later. Have a nice night. Love you."  
  
"Me too. Bye."  
  
He took it pretty well, better than I expected. I'm feeling very relaxed about everything. I'm in a good mood, I'm having a nice holiday and I'll be going back to live with a guy I wouldn't mind living with for a long time.  
  
I can't keep worrying about everything that could potentially go wrong, and about him freaking out. It takes too much energy and that way I wouldn't enjoy what we have right now. His mother will come around, because the initial shock is always the worst thing, and as much as I love him, I know he's also antagonizing her, at least a little. It's two people pulling on a string, and neither is willing to let go. But I figure she's the adult, she loves him more than anything else on this planet, that much is obvious, and she'll eventually turn a blind eye to what he's doing in the privacy of his own home.  
  
"Mom!" I yell from my room.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Is dad down there?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Tell him we can make a snowman in the yard. I'm staying here the rest of the holidays."  
  
I know they're both smiling.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
"What was that?" Ginny wants to know when I rejoin them in the living room.  
  
"Hermione.  Two-way mirror."  
  
She grins and winks.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Why'd you leave the room?  Were you guys exchanging 'verbal pleasure' or something?" 

The twins and Ron burst into laughter.  
  
"Not now, okay?" I nod towards the kitchen, were her parents were having tea.

  
"Oh. Ok." she whispers. "So have you slept with her?"  
  
"Ginny!"  
  
"What? It's a logical question. You live with her."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So.. have you?"  
  
"I don't really want to discuss this."

"Like bunnies, Gin." Ron smiles broadly.  
  
"You have!" She grins at me and shakes her head. "And that's why mom has been so weird lately."  
  
"Weird?"  
  
"Just… you'd think somebody had died or something."  
  
"Somebody did," I sigh. "Harry the Innocent."  
  


"Please, Harry." Fred scoffed.  "Harry the Innocent was lost a long time.  I've heard the stories.  Being a Quidditch star AND saviour of the world gets you all the ladies.  Ladies, that are – dare I say it – kinky?"

  
"Oh, please," Ginny laughs. "I could tell stories that would make everyone's hair stand on end."  
  
Everyone groans.   
  
"But you won't, right?" Ron begged.  
  
"If you're a good boy, Ron." She squints at me. "Do you love her?"  
  
"What?"  
  
Ginny rolls her eyes. "You heard me. Do you love her?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so." I mumble.   
  
"Yeah, you think so, or yeah, you do?"  
  
"I told her I did."  
  
"Did you mean it?"  
  


"I think so."  
  
"What's with this 'I think so' business, Harry? You either do, or you don't."  
  
"I do," I sigh.  
  
"Gee, don't sound so happy about it."  
  
"How am I supposed to be?" I ask. "Nobody I know is very happy for me, are they? I tell them and what is the reaction that I get? My mother acts like I've committed the worst sin ever, she's recruiting all of Diagon Alley to fill my head with doubts about us…"  
  
"If you love Hermione, why does that matter?"  
  
"Because your mother is my family!"  
  
"So you have doubts about the two of you?"  
  
I look away, guilty.  
  
"I just hate that I feel like I'm facing this uphill battle."  
  
"Isn't it worth it?" she asks and glances at her brothers.  They look at me expectantly.  
  
I'm left standing in the middle of the room, unable to come up with an answer.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
Harry talks to me on Christmas Eve, and at first, the call is very perfunctory. How am I doing? Is the weather good and have I gotten any good gifts yet? He briefly summarizes the day's happenings and how everybody is looking inside his suit jackets, trying to see if they're designer.  Apparently they think he and Ron are "rakin' it in"  
  
"Well, they are." I reason.  
  
"I want to look nice."  
  
"You do."  
  
"I'm smiling."  
  
"I see you."  
  
"What did you do today?" He asks.  
  
"I went next door, my neighbour, remember, the guy who got married? Well, he's in town for the holidays, so I went to check out the wife."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Very nice girl. She's a pediatrician, so he married into money." I laugh.  
  
"And here I thought only women did that."  
  
"How is your mom? Say hi to her."  
  
"She's alright. A friend of hers, you know Ms. Fortescue, whose daughter we went to school with us just bought a house nearby and moved in a couple of weeks ago, so she's been over a lot, which has distracted my mother from her inquisition."  
  
"Who's her daughter?"

"Stephanie."

I stare into the mirror blankly.  

"Yeah, I had no idea either.  But she's nice.  Very sweet and innocent, like."  
  
"That's wonderful."

"Oh and Ginny says hi."  
  
"Give her my regards too."   
  
"Yeah, and she grilled me, of course."  
  
"Of course. That's a woman in search of information."  
  
He wishes me a merry Christmas and says he's being pulled in a hundred different directions tomorrow, so he wanted to make sure he got to talk to me tonight. He wants me to give my mom a hug and tells me he misses me. I think it should be a very nice reunion when we get back to London.   
  
I put away the mirror, and everybody is still next door, so Pete comes by to drag me out of the house too.  
  
"So, where you chatting with your bigtime famous hunk?" He teases.    
  
I laugh.  
  
"Hey, how come you never went out with me? I was dark-haired and skinny too.  And I used to have a scar on my head from when I fell out of my tree.  I still have no idea what happened to all the branches…." He pretends to be hurt.  We were barely friends as kids, but Pete and I grew closer after I graduated Hogwarts.  It was almost like I had grown up with him, along with Harry and Ron.  
  
I grin at him, then grow more serious. "Hey, do you think that in the end you married Olivia because she was Italian like you?"  
  
"No. Why?"  
  
"I don't know, just something I've been thinking about."  
  
"Because you're not a famous heart-throb teenie's dream like he is?"  
  
We sit down on the couch, and put our feet, shoes included, on the coffee table.  
  
"Has he said anything about it to you?"  
  
"No, he's not like that. He's just dealing with something new."  
  
"It takes some time. If he breaks your heart, I wouldn't mind taking on a second wife." He winks.  
  
"I'll bet!" I laugh. "He's good to me, good for me."  
  
"I know, I can tell."  
  
"Come on," I stand up and extend my hand towards his. "You can tell me all about your honeymoon. Well, about Jamaica, I don't much care to hear what went on indoors."  
  
"You don't want to live vicariously?"  
  
"I don't need to." I stick my tongue out at him as we grab our jackets and head out the front door.  
  
"He's that good?"  
  
"I don't kiss and tell."  
  
We make our way into the kitchen for dinner, where about 25 people are getting ready to eat.  The kitchen is full of people who aren't wizards, but I belong, without question. There may be stupid people in the world, but there are a hell of a lot of smart ones too.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
I'm not surprised when our mother opens the door and wakes Ron and I up, way too early, for Christmas day.  
  
"Merry Christmas!" Mom says brightly, her cheeks flushed with excitement.  
  
"Ugh," Ron says in response. "What time is it?"  
  
"Seven," I grumble.  
  
"Mom," Ron whines. "You do realize that it's still Christmas at, say, eleven?"  
  
"Don't you want your presents?" she asks, grinning from ear to ear.  
  
I sigh. "Yeah, let's get this over with."  
  
I glance at Ginny at the door, who is trying hard not to laugh.  The twins stumble down to the living room with us.  
  
"Here," Mom hands Ron his first. "Merry Christmas, honey."  
  
"Thank you," he says and she waits for everyone to follow suit.  And all I want to do is go back to bed. By the time we're all done opening our gifts, it's nearly eleven and I'm almost thankful that my mom gets the whole thing over with early. Almost.  
  
I'm not allowed to return to bed; we're supposed to have brunch together and Mom tells me that she's invited Stephanie and her mom because they don't have anybody else, and it's the kind thing to do at this time of year.  
  
Ginny and Ron shoot looks at each other and I am kind of annoyed that they're not letting me in on the big secret and when they head upstairs to get dressed, I follow them.  
  
I corner Ginny in the hall next to her room.  
  
"What was that about?"  
  
Ginny smiles enigmatically.  
  
"Giiinnnnyyyyyy!" I whine. "Come on, you and Ron are up to something."  
  
"It's not us," she laughs.  
  
"Who, then?" I ask, puzzled. "The twins seem to be as out of the loop as I am."  
  
"They're not as out of the loop as you are," she chuckles. "Nobody is that out of the loop."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Do you really think Mom is inviting Ms. Fortescue and Stephanie here out of a sense of goodwill to all men?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
She shakes her head. "Think about it, Harry."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You are so dense sometimes."  
  
"Will you just tell me?"  
  
"What's the only way she can make sure you and Hermione don't get too serious?"  
  
I shrug, and then it dawns on me.  
  
"Stephanie."  
  
"Duh, Harry.  She's gorgeous – waify model-type gorgeous – and she's innocent.  I'll bet anything she's a virgin."  
  
"I don't like Stephanie."  
  
"You should have seen your face light up when Mom mentioned that she invited them over."  
  
"You're crazy."  
  
"Am I?"  
  
"I'm in love with Hermione!"  
  
Ron is on his way into the bathroom with his towel slung over his shoulder. He stops when he hears my declaration and shakes his head.  
  
"What?" I glare at him. "You too? Are you going to dispense some brotherly advice about how I can't really be in love with Hermione? How we're wrong for each other?"  
  
"I saw your face, Harry."  
  
I gape at him.  "Everyone has been stressing me out so much.  Stephanie is the ONLY person who I can laugh and talk with who isn't secretly trying to tear Hermione and I apart!  Of course I'm happy to see her!"  
  
"Look, take it from me. It's not going to be easy to fight mom on this."  
  
"I don't want to fight her!"  
  
I turn back to Ginny. "And just because she wants me with Stephanie doesn't mean it's going to happen. Stephanie and I have our own minds."  
  
Ginny tries to hold back a sarcastic smirk.  
  
"Okay, Harry."  
  
"I'm serious!"  
  
"I know."  
  
I turn to Ron for support.  
  
"Nothing is going to happen with Stephanie."  
  
"I believe you, man.  Nothing BETTER happen with Stephanie.  I'm Hermione's friend too, you know.  I already promised her that I would beat you to a pulp if you did anything to hurt her."  
  
"Right."  I glare at Ginny.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Thanks for your support."  
  
She sighs, "Harry…"  
  
"No. Ginny, I like Stephanie, you're right. As a friend. I'm in love with Hermione."  
  
She holds her hands up in a gesture of peace.  
  
"I believe you Harry. Just don't forget that, okay?"  
  
"You really think I'm that easily persuaded?"  
  
"I hope not…"

I turn again to Ron, but he's shaking his head and as he closes the bathroom door behind him, I think I hear him sighing and wishing me luck.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
My mom wants me to see Mrs. Weasley and wish her a happy holiday. I know I should do it without being told, but there is still that sense of trepidation and I hold off on Christmas, then agonize over it the following day.  
  
"Be nice, Hermione, I didn't raise a scaredy cat."  
  
"I know."  
  
I still allow myself ample time to take a long shower, eat a long breakfast, and read every page of the local newspaper, all before ever walking over to the fireplace. Then I turn right back around, and let the rest of the day pass me by. Lunch, out to my aunt's place, dinner, shower in that order, and then it's back to the fireplace again. I take some powder and throw it in the fire, before I get the chance to chicken out.  
  
"Hermione!" She greets me and I quickly rattle off my well rehearsed greeting, complete with holiday cheer.  
  
"How are you, dear?" She asks, very pleasantly. Almost perky. Strange.  
  
"I'm doing well, thank you. Are you having a nice Christmas?"  
  
"Yes, it's great to have everybody home together, even if it's for a few days."  
  
"I'm glad you have a bit of time with them, especially Harry. I know you miss having him around."  
  
"I do." She says it softly, I even sense her tearing up a little.  "I wish you were around too, you know."  
  
"Is Harry around?" I ask timidly.  
  
"No, sorry, he stepped out to walk a friend home. We were sitting around talking, lost track of time and I didn't want Stephanie to go home alone.  Poor dear can't apparate."  
  
"Oh, okay."  
  
"It's not far, he shouldn't be long."  
  
"That's alright, I didn't really need to talk to him, I just thought if he was home, I could say hello."  
  
"I'll definitely pass on the message to him."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
We end the call soon thereafter, and she's quite nice to me, although she mentions this girl, Stephanie, once again, saying how she was probably bugging Harry for autographs. I feel the hint of suspicion at the back of my mind, but I let it go immediately, berating myself for even considering the thought.  
  
"I did it, mom. I called."  
  
"That's my girl. How was it? You should have let me say hi."  
  
"Sorry, it didn't even cross my mind, I was a woman on a mission. Get in, get out, staying alive was a bonus."  
  
"Oh come on." She rolls her eyes at me. Now I know where I got that from.  
  
"Anyway, it wasn't too bad. It was pleasant, actually."  
  
"Did you tell Harry?"  
  
"He was out when I called." I say, a bit wistfully.  
  
"You miss him?"  
  
"Yeah." I smile.  
  
She gets up from her chair and pats my shoulder. "It's been a long time since I've seen you like this."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Happy, giddy about a man, dreamy, girlish, swooning..."  
  
I snort. "Mom, I'm going to vomit if you continue."  
  
"It's a good thing, you know. You always had such a business first attitude about you, a good head on your shoulders, but it's nice to let go and be silly in love sometimes too."  
  
I look down and blush a little.   
  
"Okay, so I really miss him a lot." I tell her and she grins, happy with my admission.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
Mom persuades me to walk Stephanie home, telling me that I had to be gentlemanly. I want to volunteer Ron for the task, but he bows out after Mom gives him a stern look and I start to wonder if he and Ginny are right.  But my mother couldn't possibly try to ruin my love life, could she?  
  
I help Stephanie with her coat and we go out into the crisp night air.  
  
"I had fun," she tells me as we head to her home.  
  
I smile noncommittally and wait for her to catch up with me. It's funny, I can't help rushing through this. I just want to get Stephanie home and get myself home and contact Hermione.  
  
"You have a really great family,' she smiles.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Mrs. Weasley is great."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"You must miss them, sometimes, right?"  
  
"Sometimes."  
  
She stops and shoves her hands inside her pockets and looks up at me.  
  
"Harry? Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah, sure." I shrug. "I'm fine."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You just seem angry at me or something. I just don't understand why. I don't think I've done or said anything wrong, have I?"  
  
"No." I try to hold myself in check. It's not really her fault that my mom is plotting to destroy my relationship with Hermione. She's an innocent bystander.  
  
I sigh.  
  
"I'm sorry, Stephanie. I just miss my friends."  
  
She gives me a look.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
I blush.  
  


She smiles. "I overheard a lot about her. Via your mom talking to my mom."  
  
"That can't have been pretty," I groan.  
  
"Your mom just doesn't want you to get too serious too fast." Stephanie shrugs and burrows deeper inside her jacket.  
  
"Do you want gloves?" I ask her and she shakes her head.  
  
"We're almost back to my place."  
  
"Do you think she's right?" I ask and instantly regret that the thought even crossed my mind.  
  
"You're young," she smiles. "Why get tied down?"  
  
I consider this.   
  
"But if you care about somebody…"  
  
"Why do you have to be exclusive?" she asks. "I mean, if you are just seeing if you fit with somebody else, why not check out your options?"  
  
"I have so many," I comment dryly.  
  
"I hear some women have 'Potter Shrines'" she teases.  
  
"Yeah, and I'm sure they had all kinds of activities in mind for it," I laugh.  
  
"It's a life-size shrine," she winks.  
  
I groan and she breaks into laughter.  
  
We reach her door and she opens it.  
  
"Where's your mom?" I ask.  
  
Stephanie shrugs. "Probably went for a drink at the neighbours'. Do you want to come in and warm up?"  
  
"I should get back," I say, thinking about seeing Hermione.  
  
  
"Oh, come on," she persuades. "I'll make some hot chocolate or something."  
  
"No thanks," I smile.  
  
"Cider?"  
  
I shrug.  Evidently she wanted me to stay. "Okay, yeah."  
  
"I had to twist your arm hard," she laughs.  
  
I can't help it. Despite the fact that I know I'm feeding right into my mother's fantasy, I like Stephanie. She's easy to talk to and doesn't make me feel guilty about my life.  Like a bit of relief after a whole long holiday antagonizing with my mother.  
  
I follow her into the house and she turns on a lamp in the living room, giving the room a soft glow.  
  
"Take your jacket off and stay awhile," she invites and heads into the kitchen to put the kettle on.  
  
She comes back and I'm relaxing against the leather of the sofa, flipping through a photo album.  
  
"Is this you?" I ask, pointing to a picture of a very different looking girl.  
  
"Yeah," she laughs. "Wasn't I ugly?"  
  
"No," I shake my head.  
  
"Yeah, right."  
  
"You weren't."  
  
"I was hideous."  
  
"Not possible."    
  
"Sure." She sticks her tongue out at me.  
  
"You can't have been hideous, ever."  
  
"Why not?" she asks.  
  
"Because you're beautiful."  
  
She punches me in the arm.  
  
"You're a flirt!"  I can't help but grin.  She's not as innocent as she looks.  
  
"I am not!" I protest.  
  
I seem to remember having this conversation before.  But it was true, Stephanie was stunning.  She looked like a model, tall, thin, full lips, graceful…  
  
"You are!" she insists, reaching over to me.  
  
I grab her hand. She grabs my other one in return. We're laughing hard and trying to one up the other.  
  
I don't mean for it to happen.  
  
Suddenly hands are where they shouldn't be and lips and tongues soon follow. The couch isn't big enough to handle the two of us and we crash to the floor, too involved in our pursuits to notice our fall from grace.  
  
The kettle starts to whistle in the other room. I don't even notice.

  



	20. Unsuspecting

A/N: Wow.  LoL.  Okay, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the last chapter got everyone a tad riled up.  Um, well here's the next chapter, Chapter 20 (wow, this may get pretty long, folks).  Chapter 21 will be up by tomorrow, if I'm able to get home from school early.  And Chapter 22 may well be uploaded very soon after that. I'm going to try a rapid-fire these chapters at you, to get us through these tough times…

Just as I start changing into my pajamas to snuggle under the covers and read, my mom knocks on the door to take me out on a "traditional after-Christmas shopping spree."

"Didn't we just spend all our money on presents?  Aren't we broke yet?"

"Oh hush, I don't want you just lying here pining for your man." She winks.  "Come on, your father is waiting."

I was not pining.  I was merely thinking about him and missing him.  It's not the same.  

"Fine.  Give me five minutes."  I smile and push her out of the room.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
The sound of her mother's hand on the doorknob brings us both crashing down to earth.  
  
"Up," she pushes against me.  
  
"What?"  
  
"My mom!" she hisses, handing me my shirt while she struggles to do her own back up.  
  
"What?" I'm disoriented and only now realizing the gravity of the situation I'm finding myself in.  
  
"Shit!"  The word does not even come close to describe my feelings.  There is no word to damn me for what I've done.  
  
"Hurry up!" she whispers urgently.  
  
"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!"  
  
She tucks her shirt in and glares at me, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.  
  
"Go in the bathroom," she tells me, shoving me towards the door.  
  
"God, I'm such an ass..."  
  
"Shut up, Harry. If my mother hears you swearing, she'll freak."  
  
I want to tell Stephanie to which very hot place she could go.  Her mother is the least of my worries.  
  
I hide in the bathroom, making sure I click the lock when I close the door behind me.  
  
I can hear Stephanie and her mother in the other room.  
  
"Harry's," Stephanie is saying. "He came in to get warm."  
  
Yeah, but this wasn't what I had in mind.  
  
"Cider," Stephanie says and then offers her mom some.  
  
"I'm going to go up to bed," Mrs. Fortescue says and I groan at the thought of being alone with Stephanie again.  
  
"Okay," she replies and I hear her mom trudging up the stairs.  
  
After a moment, Stephanie knocks on the bathroom door.  
  
"She's gone."  
  
I can't stay in there forever, so I hesitantly open the door.  
  
"Ummm, I should go."  
  
She stands back and lets me get past her.  
  
"It's not horrible, Harry," she says as I pull on my jacket and shove my feet into my shoes.  
  
I stare at her.  
  
"I have a girlfriend, Stephanie."  
  
"That didn't seem to matter a few minutes ago," she says quietly.  
  
"It shouldn't have happened."  
  
"Nothing happened," she shrugs. "So we fooled around a little bit, so what?"  
  
"It shouldn't have happened."  
  
"You didn't sleep with me, so you're off the hook."  
  
I don't say anything, I just zip up my jacket and leave.  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
  
In the morning, I wake up feeling like I've been trampled by a hippogriff.  
  
Hermione's voice only makes me feel worse.  
  
I miss her but I can't talk to her. I'm afraid my voice will betray me.  
  
I need time to figure out… something, so I make my excuses and put the miror away.  
  
Mom is sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea when I enter the room.  
  
"Morning," she smiles at me. "You were out late. Were you with Stephanie?"  
  
I shake my head.  
  
"No, I just needed some quiet."  
  
I'm not going to tell my mother about this.  Never.  
  
"Oh."  
  
There is a lot more than "Oh" in that "Oh" and I sigh.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"No, what do you want to say, Mom?"  
  
"Stephanie seems like a nice girl," she smiles. "I'm glad you're spending time with her."  
  
"I think I'm going to go back home tonight" I blurt out.  
  
She frowns. "I thought you weren't leaving until the weekend."  
  
"I need to get back.  Um, Hermione will be going back soon.  She decided not to come here."  
  
"She can survive without you for a few more days."  
  
I glare at my mother.  
  
"I can't survive without her."  
  
She shakes her head at me, "You just did."  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
I don't get a chance to call him back for a couple of hours, because I was is a public muggle area, and they probably wouldn't appreciate me talking to a mirror. When I'm home, I try to see him, but he's not there.  I repeat his name five times before I give up.  
  
I don't make anything of it – maybe he just left the mirror in his room or something.  I'm not a needy girlfriend, and I wouldn't bother calling back at all until the next day, except I'm still unclear on whether or not he wants to come here for a couple of days for New Years, and I'd like to know if my plans should involve him or not.  
  
I had a civil conversation with Mrs. Weasley previously, and I've gotten over my fear of talking to her, so I do so now.  
  
She greets me and I can tell she's really surprised to hear from me.  
  
"Hi, is Harry there?" I ask her.  
  
"No, no, he went out with Ron and Ginny somewhere."  
  
"Oh."   
  
"Everybody wanted him to take something back to your house and he doesn't have enough room in the trunk he brought along."  
  
"He's packing already?"  
  
"Yes, I thought you were meeting him today?"  
  
"Pardon?" In reality, 'huh??' was on the tip of my tongue, but I want to be proper.  
  
"You're not going back to London?"  
  
"No...." Where is she getting this from?  
  
"Oh, that's strange.  He's leaving tonight."  
  
"To London?"  
  
"Yes.  And he said he would be meeting you back there."  
  
I really, really want to say 'huh' right now, but I refrain once more.  
  
"I'm not really sure what's going on, I haven't had a chance to talk to him that much the last few days."  
  
"I'm sorry," she says. "I assumed you two had something planned."  
  
"I was actually calling to see if he was still thinking about coming here to my parents house for a couple of days."  
  
"I don't know what to tell you, I see we're both out of the loop here."  
  
"Right."  
  
"He just came downstairs this morning, said he needed to get back to you."  
  
"Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense considering I'm not going anywhere for a few more days."  
  
She's quiet for a moment, like she's trying to put two and two together. For some reason, and I don't know why and I can't explain it, but I think a little lightbulb might have turned on in her head, and I'm certain she's got much more of an idea about what's going on than I do.  
  
"I will definitely tell him to call you, if in fact he deems it necessary to tell me anything that goes on in that head of his."   
  
"Okay, thank you. I appreciate that."  
  
"It's no problem." For a split second, I feel as if she's in my corner. "Hermione, if I don't get a chance to speak to you in the meantime, I want to wish you a happy new year. I have a feeling you'll have a wonderful year and you certainly deserve it."  
  
Wow, okay. "Thank you."  
  
"And I apologize for how things have been lately."  
  
"You don't need to..."  
  
"No, I do."   
  
The thing about this conversation is that it's getting progressively stranger. I honestly believe that the rest of the world is in on some secret I'm not, I believe she knows why Harry's acting weird, I believe she won't tell me and I believe she's suddenly plagued by some sort of guilt which is why she's talking to me like nothing bad ever happened, and apologizing along the way.  
  
I'm also more and more uncomfortable, because the greatest fear is that of the unknown and right now that's where I am. In that vein, I wrap up the conversation, go to my room and then stand there, staring out the window, trying to make sense of it all, and failing miserably where it counts.  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
I'm already packed; I don't want to waste time on small talk and awkwardness. I just want to throw the rest of what's left in the bag and get home. I know it's irrational, but I keep thinking that once I get home, I'm really gone from this place and maybe I can forget about what happened here.  
  
Except I can't.  
  
I know that I'm avoiding Stephanie and I'm probably even avoiding my mom, because she knows me better than anyone and I'm positive that she has figured out that something is going on, even if she doesn't know what.  
  
Most of all, I'm avoiding Hermione.  I never used to feel this.  Before Hermione, Stephanie would have been right.  We didn't have sex, so I was off the hook.  But with Hermione everything is different.  
  
My mirror has been stuffed in the bottom of my trunk the whole day, but I know that she's called. So when Ginny, Ron and I get back to the house and Mom tells me that Hermione spoke to her, I'm not really surprised.  
  
"I thought you were going back to be with her," Mom says. Ginny and Ron look from Mom to me and back, clearly lost.  
  
I shrug. "She wanted to spend some more time with her family."  
  
She frowns. "Are you two alright?"  
  
"Wouldn't you be happier if we weren't?" I mumble.  
  
Ginny shoots me a look.  
  
Mom glances over at her. "Ginny, would you mind starting dinner? I need to talk to Harry.  Ron, go round up your brothers."  
  
"Sure," they shrug, happy to get out of the line of fire.  Ginny touches my arm before she leaves.  

"Harry, make sure you come say goodbye."  
  
"Sure."  
  


They leaves us there and Mom motions toward the living room.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Come talk to me."  
  
"I'm talking to you here."  
  
"Harry."  
  
"Fine," I sigh and follow her into the other room.  
  
"Do you want to tell me why you're avoiding Hermione?"  
  
"I'm not avoiding her," I lie.  
  
"Then why haven't you told her that you're going back to London? From what I understand, she expected that you were going to be joining her at her parents house."  
  
"Maybe I'm as welcome there as she would have been here," I say sarcastically.  
  
"That's not fair, Harry. Besides, it's you she wants to see. And I'd think you'd want to see her. Unless something has changed."  
  
She's watching me carefully, and I can't help but squirm.  
  
"What's going on, Harry?"  
  
"Nothing." Now I'm avoiding her eyes.  
  
"I haven't seen much of Stephanie in the last few days," she muses.  
  
"Maybe she's been busy" I shrug.  
  
"She should come by and say goodbye," she decides and starts to get up.  
  
"No! Mom!"  
  
"Tell me. Now."  
  
I sigh, "There's nothing to tell."  
  
"Will Stephanie say the same thing?"  
  
Honestly, I don't know what Stephanie will say. I'm not willing to risk finding out.  
  
"We kissed," I mumble.  
  
She arches an eyebrow. I can see her out of the corner of my eye.  
  
"So? What's a kiss? Why are you so upset? Why are you running away?"  
  
I look at the floor.  
  
"Was there more?" There's a note of dread in her voice and I know that as much as she wants to know the answer, she really doesn't either.  
  
  
"A bit."  
  
"A bit?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
It's all I'm willing to say.  
  
My mother comes to her own conclusions.  
  
"You slept with her?" she hisses, glancing around the room to make sure no one is standing in the doorway, getting filled in.  
  
"No!"  
  
"But you…" she hesitates, loathe to describe us in any compromising situation. She lowers her voice. "You made out with her?"  
  
There are a million things I wish I'd never heard uttered from her lips. This is number one with a bullet.  
  
I'm sure I'm scarlet and to be honest, the room is taking on strange qualities. Like spinning when I know I'm sitting perfectly still.  
  
"Oh, Harry." There is definitely disappointment there, stronger than I've ever heard it before in my life. Maybe because I'm filtering it through my own brain which is heaped in layers and layers of disappointment – not to mention guilt – of it's own.  
  
"What were you thinking?" she asks after a moment.  
  
I stare at her.  
  
"What was I thinking? What. Was. I. THINKING?!" My voice is definitely not in the same range as hers anymore.  
  
"Shhh, Harry!"  
  
"Mom," I turn to her with barely suppressed rage. "Didn't you encourage me to spend time with Stephanie?"  
  
"So this is my fault?" she shoots back.  
  
"You certainly don't want me with Hermione!"  
  
"No. I thought," she begins, trying to keep her voice calm and even. "I thought you should think about a …nice… girl."  
  
  
"Like Stephanie?"  
  
She looks away.  
  
"I didn't do this on my own." I whisper.

  
"I know that."  
  
"Just like you know that I was a willing participant with Hermione?"  
  
She swallows.  
  
"Stephanie is more what people would expect, Harry. I thought…"  
  
I get to my feet.  
  
"You were wrong."  
  
She follows me out into the hall.  
  
"Ginny!" I call, because I promised. "Ginny!  RON!"  
  
She pops her head around the corner.  Ron barrels in clumsily.  
  
"I'm going."  
  
Again, Ginny and Ron look at each of us in turn, and back again.  
  
"Are you okay?" Ginny asks hesitantly.  
  
"No, I'm beyond reprehensible," I tell her. "So, that's actually good news for you and Ron and everyone else. There's nothing any of you can do that will match how much I've screwed up and how much I've embarrassed your mother."  
  
Ginny bites her lip.  Ron still looks puzzled.  But that's fine for now, I could do without the rapid fire upper-cuts at the moment.

  
"Harry …" Mom says, reaching for my arm. "Don't leave like this."  
  
"No," I shake her off my arm. "I need to go. I need to be alone. I need to think."

Suddenly there is a loud bang from the upstairs.

"Ron, please tell the twins to stop whatever they are destroying?" mom orders tiredly.  Ron nods and grabs my shoulder.  "See ya, mate."  
  
As soon as he is gone, my mother starts again.  "What are you going to do about Hermione? About … about…"  
  
"Stephanie?"  
  
Ginny's eyes widen, but she doesn't say a word.  She's figured it out.    
  
  
"There's nothing to do," I say. "I love Hermione."  
  
And you have a funny way of showing it, A voice inside my head says. I pick up my bags and stand in the doorway.  Ginny continues to stare.

"Ginny, can you please not tell Ron yet?"

Her mouth simply opens and closes like a fish.    
  
Mom sighs and looks genuinely worried.  
  
"I don't want you to get hurt, Harry" she says as I turn to leave.    
  
I have the sinking feeling it may be too late for that.  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  
  
He doesn't call me back later.

  
My main concern is that the two of them have had some kind of falling out. I can't think of another reason he'd be high tailing it out of her house, although the last few days there, he sounded settled, and even happy.  
  
Maybe all hell broke loose or she said something that he took completely the wrong way or he was just tired of answering a million questions, playing the role of a big fish in a tiny pond.  
  
The only thing that doesn't make sense is why she would pretend to not know what's going on. I can understand her assuming he'd want to see me, but I don't understand why she'd pretend to be so shocked at his sudden departure. Not only do I doubt she's that good of an actress, I also don't happen to think she's a liar.  
  
I try a couple of times on his mirror, then I check our fireplace in London.  Nothing yet.  
  
I tell my mom about all of this, and she's thinking along the same lines as I am - something must have happened.  
  
"He'll call you." She assures me. "But he's a man, he's got to blow off some steam apparently."  
  
I smiled at her, but continued to worry about him, even as I went to bed a fell asleep.  
  
In the morning, I discover that my mom had seen my mirror and had talked to Harry.    
  
"He said he was home, he had a crappy Christmas, and he didn't feel like complaining over this mirror and he didn't want to wake you.  He told me he loves you and he wants you to see him as soon as you wake up."  She handed the mirror to me.  I was surprised my mother hadn't freaked out and smashed the mirror when Harry appeared in it.  She's still not used to magic things.  
  
I want to call, but he said himself that he didn't want to talk over the mirror.  I had to go home.  
  
I run down the hall to find my mom and tell her I'm going.  
  
"I'm sorry, you know I intended to stay."  
  
"I know." She smiles sadly.  
  
"I'm going to come out here again soon, even if it's just for a weekend. I miss you."  
  
"I miss you too, and yes, you better come back soon!" She hugs me and cries on my shoulder for a minute, then furiously wipes away the tears, hoping I wouldn't see them.  
  
"It's okay, mom, me too."  
  
"Tell him that I said hello and that I expect to see his face around here at some point."  
  
"I will."

My dad thumps down, angry at first that I'm leaving, but he's a big softie inside and he hugs me so hard I'm afraid he'll never let go.  But he does, and I promise him that I will write every day.  
  
  


They help me throw my things together.  
  


"Thanks, guys."  
  
"We'll miss you."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"Okay. Just go and be happy. And call to tell me you're happy."  
  
"I will."  
  
Then she cries again, and the next thing I know, I'm standing on Harry and I's front porch.


	21. Shattered

A/N: Again – Wow.  Didn't know you all felt that strongly.  Ah well tough noogies.  :P.  Hopefully I didn't lose many readers… (Note: read the title of the story).  Anyway, just a little warning: this chapter made me a bit sad.  Oh, and in response to one particularly respectable review about Harry being OOC my justification is that when one is as pressured and made nervous by his own family, I believe there is a possibility that one might act OOC.  But thank you for your review.

I must look ridiculous, but here I sit, with the shades drawn and my eyes closed, thinking too hard about not thinking.  
  
So when I hear the door close, I jump about ten feet into the air and my heart hammers in my chest.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
She's home. I'm not ready to see her, but she's home.  
  
"Are you here?"  
  
I can't get out without being seen, so I guess it's time to face the music.  
  
"In here," I say and she sticks her head around the corner.  
  
"Hi honey, I'm home," she grins.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Is that my greeting?" She's still smiling at me and I miss her so much all of a sudden, even though now she's standing right in front of me.  
  
I take a few steps over to her and she's in my arms.  
  
"Hi," I whisper into her hair. "You're home."  
  
"I'm home." She wraps her arms around me and stands on her toes to reach me better.  
  
"I missed you," she says and kisses me.  
  
I can't breathe. I can't think. I can't, I can't, I can't.  
  
I know she senses it because she pulls back and looks up at me, her eyes filled with concern.  
  
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"  
  
No.  
  
I shake my head. "I missed you."  
  
She laughs, "We weren't apart for that long."  
  
"Too long," I whisper, cradling her face in my hands and touching my lips to hers. It feels so different now.  
  
I want to erase Stephanie. I want to absolve myself of my sins. I want it to feel safe and warm and loving. I want to escape in her.  
  
She doesn't object when I pull the ends of her shirt free of her pants and slide my hands along her ribcage. In fact, I can feel her smiling against my lips.  
  
"Maybe it was too long," she laughs, helping me with my task as she undoes the buttons on her blouse.  
  
"Way too long," I agree.  
  
"What, did you forget about me or something?"  
  
I shake my head vehemently. "Never."  
  
"I thought you might like it if I came home early," she smirks.  
  
"Love it," I nod, not sure of what to say.  
  
"I love you," she smiles and works the button clasp on my jeans.  
  
I want to say it. Instead I lean my forehead against hers and close my eyes.  
  
"Upstairs?" she suggests.  
  
"Here."  
  
She laughs, "And I always thought you didn't like to try new things."  
  
"I don't."  
  
I don't want to try anything else; all I want is you. I love you. Hermione.  
  
"What?" She's looking at me with a question in her eyes.  
  
"What?" I return.  
  
"You said my name."  
  
"I did?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I want you."  
  
"I noticed," she grins, sliding her hand inside the waistband of my jeans and down. She cups my balls through the thin fabric of my shorts and her fingers squeeze gently.  
  
"God," I breathe. "I forgot."  
  
"What?" she smiles and leans in to take tiny bites at the skin of my collarbone.  
  
"You… I forgot how good you feel."  
  
"Why are you talking, then?"  
  
She pulls her shirt off in one fluid motion and moves to do the same with mine. I link my hands with hers and bring both to her breasts. She struggles to break free of my grasp.  
  
I take over there, running my thumb along her nipple and watching it harden beneath my touch.  
  
Suddenly I'm in a hurry, but we're standing in the middle of the foyer and I look around wildly.  
  
"Where?"  
  
She understands what I mean and laughs.  
  
"I don't care, Harry."  
  
The couch is out. I don't want any parallels here.  
  
"I'm not going to make it upstairs" I tell her sheepishly and she laughs again.  
  
"Right here, then."  
  
"Here?"  
  
"Now," she breathes, her breath hot and moist against my neck.  
  
And she sheds the rest of her clothes before I even realize what's happening.  
  
She pushes me up against the stairs so that I land on the bottom step and then she straddles my lap and lowers herself onto me.  
  
"I'm sorry," she says, raising herself slightly and then lowering herself again.  
  
I shake my head. "It's… good."  
  
  
She chuckles. "Good?"  
  
I grab her hips and she sets the rhythm and even though we're in a very awkward position, I hardly notice.  
  
"Better."  
  
"I love you," she tells me again and when I lower my head to take her nipple into my mouth and my fingers move between us and work to heighten the sensations where we are joined, she cries out and her own hands rake at my skin.  
  
"I love you," I return. "I love you, Hermione. I'm so sorry, baby."  
  
She stills and looks down at me.  
  
"Harry?"  
  
I'm crying, oh Merlin, I'm crying, and I push against her and reach blindly for clothes when I am free to move again.  
  
"Harry?" her voice is far away but so close and I can hear the fear in it.  
  
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I love you."  
  
"What… what is it?"  
  
"I didn't mean it. I love you."  
  
The words that were so hard to say only minutes ago are the only ones I have now.  
  
"I love you. Hermione. I love you."  
  
She's motionless and her voice is barely audible when she speaks.  
  
"Who is she?"  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
My own words sound so far away.  
  
The whole time I was gone, I never seriously considered this option. Never.  
  
But now he's standing in front of me, clumsily pulling his clothes back on, apologizing, professing his love and it's so obvious. It's right there in his eyes.  
  
I grab my shirt off the floor and pull it over my head, then grab my jeans.  
  
"Who is she?" I repeat quietly.  
  
"Nobody."  
  
It was right there in his eyes and I expected this answer, but I didn't expect the wind knocked out of me, I didn't expect it to feel like this. Like a part of my heart was left someplace else, with some other guy, the kind of guy whose answer wouldn't have been 'nobody' but a confused 'what are you talking about?'.  
  
He's gone, and he took that piece of me with him.  
  
I pull my hair up and walk into the living room, sitting down on the couch. My couch.  
  
"Who is she?" I ask again, calmly, quietly.  
  
"Hermione, oh Hermione," he sits on the coffee table across from me, "I love you, I do, I want you to know that."  
  
I look beyond his shoulder, out to the blue sky.  
  
"What's her name, Harry?"  
  
"Stephanie."  
  
"Okay." I rub the bridge of my nose, get up and go to grab my bags.  
  
"Where are you going?" He's bewildered; I'm too calm.  
  
"To unpack."  
  
"That's it?"  
  
"There isn't anything else I want to know."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You heard me, Harry." My voice rises. "I don't care if she's sexy, I don't care why or where or how it was. I don't care if you were on top or bottom, it doesn't interest me."  
  
"Hermione, we didn't! I didn't, we didn't have sex."  
  
I start climbing up the stairs and he follows me. I can't stand it. I was doing well thus far because I felt calm, but now there is a tiny ball forming in my throat. It's only the size of a pea maybe, but I know it'll gain a layer with every word he says and it'll gain 3 layers every time I look at him, so I need to get away.  
  
"I was home, she used to go to school with us. And all these people, these idiots, they thought that you and I will never work and I was so tired.  Pressured. And my mom thought Stephanie was this nice little innocent girl..."  
  
"I. Don't. Care. Which part of that did you fail to understand?"  
  
"And I wasn't thinking, it just happened, and then I was so sick, sick of what I've done, so I ran home and then I ran away from home."  
  
"I want you to go now." I tell him as we reach my room.  
  
"Hermione, please..."  
  
"What?" I turn on my heels.  
  
"I never wanted to hurt you."  
  
"What you're doing now, here, Harry, that's hurting me. You looking at me and you feeding me crap about not wanting to hurt me, that hurts." The ball in my throat grows bigger and my eyes are watery.  
  
"I'm sorry." He whispers.  
  
"And this," I motion down the stairs and swallow a sob, "the fact you'd wait for me and kiss me and, God, that you'd..." I take a second to make sure I don't cry in front of him, "have SEX and come inside me, that really, really hurts. It's bloody hurtful."

He pauses in the shock that I called it what I did.  He knows very well that I consider sex and making love two very different things…and the fact that I called it sex must have hit home.  
  
"It's my fault. When I saw you, I knew that nothing else mattered, I just wanted this, and you were there and then I knew what an idiot I'd been. I knew anyway, but when I saw you..."  
  
"You should have had the decency to tell me before we did it, so that I could have walked away with my dignity intact."  
  
"I love you." He whispers, even more quietly.

  
"And that? That hurts the most, Harry."  
  
I slam the door in his face. Then I cry. I hear him slump against my door, and I know he's sitting in the hallway, just outside my room. That hurts too.  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
How did I ever think I could avoid this?  
  
For a minute there, I did. I thought, okay, this happened somewhere else. Somewhere she wasn't. Nobody knows about it. Mom, yeah, but she's not going to tell. No matter what I've done, I'm still hers and she'll protect me.  
  
It didn't even cross my mind that Stephanie would tell. She'd said that nothing had happened, that it wasn't a big deal.  
  
Ginny is may bloody well be my sister and no matter what kind of dog I am, she knows that I love Hermione.  
  
So I thought I had all my bases covered. I didn't even consider myself.  
  
And it's true; I saw her there and I missed her so much in that moment and I just needed her. I needed to remember the way things were before I met Stephanie and forgot myself.  
  
She told me she loved me and I knew that it was true. She said it so simply, as though they weren't words, but breath.  
  
I thought I loved her before; I KNOW it now.  
  
I can hear her on the other side of the door, taking shuddering gulps of air. I can hear her heart breaking. Or maybe I can feel it because it's my own.  
  
I bury my face in my hands and cry. I cry until there are no tears left and I'm just taking air in, as though trying to refill myself. There's not enough oxygen left.  
  
I'm still next to her door and I hear her moving in the room. I hear the mattress shift and after awhile, there is no more movement. I lean my head back against the door and close my eyes. It hurts because they are so swollen and I marvel at how it may be possible to cry so much that your eyes feel dry.  
  
The sheer exhaustion of the events of the last few hours is making me feel dizzy and without meaning to, I feel myself slumping further and then glorious sleep lets me escape myself for awhile.  
  


. . . .

  
  
  
  
The door opening wakes me and I forget where I am and what caused me to be there, at least temporarily.  
  
"Hi," I rasp.  
  
"No," she shakes her head and steps over me and closes the bathroom door firmly behind herself.  
And I remember.  
  
I groan and struggle to a sitting position. My back aches from my awkward position sleeping outside her door all night and my head aches from all the tears.  
  
I hear the shower running and I get to my feet and stand outside the bathroom door when it stops.  
  
I trace my fingertips along the grooves in the wood of the door and wait for her.  
  
"Hermione?" I whisper her name.  
  
I hear her sigh.  
  
"Please go."  
  
"I can't."  
  
She opens the door but doesn't look directly at me.  
  
"Then I will."  
  
She starts back to her bedroom and I reach out and grab her hand.  
  
She pulls it away and glares at me.  
  
"Don't touch me."  
  
"Okay," I whisper and raise my hands.  "Please, I need to explain."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"There's nothing to explain, Harry. I've got it."  
  
"I didn't have sex with her."  
  
I know I've said it before, but I feel like I should say it again. As if it changes something.  
  
"Am I supposed to care?"  
  
"No. Yes. I stopped, Hermione. Because I love you."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"What happened, Harry? Did she say no? So then, you hadn't gotten off yet, so you came home to me because I'm the idiot who fell in ... who ... who said yes?"

Her mother had come home.  We stopped because her mother's hand touched that doorknob.  No.   
  
"No! No, Hermione. No. I love you. I love you!"  
  
Tears form in her eyes again and I wish she'd let me hold her. I want to, so badly.  
  
"I don't ever want you to say that to me again."  
  
"I do."  
  
"Don't!" She backs away from me now. "Don't say it, don't think it, don't think you feel it. You don't love me. You don't know what that word means. If you loved me, you wouldn't have been so easy to persuade. And you wouldn't have come home to me and come inside me and told me you loved me and then told me you were with some slut."  
  
I open my mouth to speak and she shoots daggers at me.  
  
"Don't! Don't defend her."  
  
"I wasn't..."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"I don't believe a word you say."  
  
"I love you," I try weakly. It's all I have.  
  
"Especially that."

A/N: Please don't hurt me….next chapter will be up tomorrow.


	22. Hope

I cried so long last night, too long, and even though that's supposed to make you feel better, it didn't.  
  
I don't know where or when, but I remember reading something about how you cry when you have a complete breakdown in communication. When there are no words to describe how you're feeling and when you can't face another person or talk to them rationally, you cry. It's the only outlet you've got.  
  
This morning, when I saw him outside my door, I felt like I was progressing through the five stages of grief, except that I'd passed right by denial and straight to anger and resentment.  
  
"I love you," he stood there and said to me. It's a slap in the face. It's adding insult to injury.  
  
I needed to get out of the house for a while, because he was everywhere I looked, even when he wasn't. And every corner, every landmark inside the rooms and the hallways, it held some significance, and it was so bright when I'd look at it. I couldn't stand to be reminded of how uncomfortable the stairs are when you're lying on them or how cold the kitchen tiles are when somebody lifts you up, and then your feet come back down, toes first.  
  
As I was looking for my shoes, he lingered in the doorway behind me, looking almost pitiful enough to earn my sympathy, but not quite. Maybe not even close, I don't even know anymore.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
I don't answer as I slip one foot into a running shoe and bend over to tie the laces.  
  
"I'm 100% in the wrong here." He says.  
  
"No shit."  
  
"I can be angry at myself but I can't be angry at you and I can't blame you for any of it."  
  
I roll my eyes at him.  
  
"So, whatever happens here, you have to decide that. It's shitty for me to be putting you in this position, but I guess that's just another thing that's my fault."  
  
"I don't feel sorry for you, Harry." It occurs to me that it's a cruel thing to say, but it's also truthful.  
  
"I'm not asking you to. I'm just, I don't know, hoping that one mistake doesn't add up to all the good things."  
  
"It doesn't," I say and he looks up. "But it stomps all over them. I can't stand here and look at you and imagine what it was like with her. I tortured myself with that all night and felt like throwing up. I'm going out."  
  
I walk out the door before he's had a chance to regroup and come up with a plan B. I don't want any part of it.  
  


…

  
  
  
The thing that really surprises me is that it's not him I'm so much angry with as it is myself.  
  
I knew, I knew this would never work. Not only did I express that verbally, but in writing as well. There were at least a half a dozen good reasons for why we never should have been in this place to start with. I allowed him to trample all over that, I allowed him to convince me that falling in love with him negated all of that.  
  
I told him that there is too much at stake here. He said that in relationships there are no guarantees. I just didn't take note of that, I guess.  
  
And it hurts so much that he's gone. Of course he's still here, probably in the same spot I left him in, but that image I had of who he is and how he felt about me is gone, and that's all that matters now.  
  
The risk to benefit ratio was too high and now I'm left with nothing.  
  
And I'm angry that I knew all along this is what the end of the road would be like.  
  
And I'm even angrier I was so head over heels in love with him.  
  
And I'm most angry that I still feel that way, that I'm still in love with him as much as I hate him, but worse yet, maybe even more.  
  
It's late evening when I stumble back into the house and he's up, waiting for me.  
  
"Lavender called, she asked to tell you to come over to her place for New Year's.  She also still has Crookshanks and Bumpy."  
  
Oh, that's tomorrow. I didn't even remember.  
  
"Okay." It doesn't sound bad; I want to go. I need to be among other people.  
  
"She also invited me." He says apologetically.  
  
"So? Go if you want.  Will Ron be there?"  
  
"Ron won't be coming back until after New Years.  But I didn't think--"  
  
"Harry, I don't need this drama. If you want to go, go. I'm not stopping you."  
  
"Hermione, do you want to stay here tomorrow?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I thought, maybe we could talk or something. Or just be here. It's not how I imagined tomorrow."  
  
"That makes two of us. I can't talk to you about this." I shake my head vehemently.  
  
"Why not? Things will never change then."  
  
"Oh, what? I'm supposed to sit here the day after you drop this bombshell on me and forgive you and then usher the new year in up there?" I motion toward our bedrooms.  
  
"No. I mean, yes, I want you to forgive me, but I don't expect you'd do it so soon."  
  
"The fact you expect it at all makes you a pretty big ass, Harry." I can throw punches with the best of them.  
  
"I'm sorry. I love you and I'm sorry and I know you've told me to stop saying that, but it's the only thing I've got, so I have to hope that maybe you still feel the same way, even if you're angry now."  
  
"That I love you?" I ask.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Honestly, Harry, what difference would it make? I loved you while you were with her too and here we are. It counts for nothing."  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
"That's not true." I know that my actions probably make my denial null and void, but as much as she doesn't want to believe me, it's true. If she loves me, even now – especially now – maybe I can forgive myself. Maybe I can stop feeling dead inside.  
  
"I won't go to Lavender's" I decide. "I want you to have a good time."  
  
"Your being there won't stop me from having a good time," she shrugs. "I don't care what you do."  
  
I think I'd feel better if she yelled at me or threw things or told me she hated me. Anything other than this cold indifference.  
  
I nod, a lump forming in my throat. My eyes are burning again and I can't decide whether to walk away or to fall at her feet.  
  
"Okay."  
  
She nods and starts up the stairs.  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
"What?" she sighs.   
  
"I'm sorry. I know it doesn't mean a lot; maybe it doesn't mean anything, but I am. I'm sorry that I didn't respect you… that I didn't respect us."  
  
She stops halfway up the stairs and turns to me.  
  
"Does it hurt, Harry?"  
  
I nod, unable to speak.  
  
"Good."  
  
  


***

  
  
  
  
Truth be told, I'm really not in the mood for a party, but I know if I don't go, Lavender will be insulted and she'll question me until she digs up the dirt on what is going on between Hermione and I. I'd rather she didn't know the gory details.  
  
I dress and head downstairs.  Hermione is coming out of her own room and she's wearing a sparkly black sweater and a long, shimmery skirt.  
  
"You look beautiful," I tell her wistfully.  
  
"Thank you," she says and brushes past me.  
  


"Do you want to go with me?" I offer.  
  
"No."  
  
"It's going to look kind of ridiculous if we show up separately."  
  
"I don't really care how it looks," she says quietly, pulling her coat on and buttoning it.  
  
"Do you want to be interrogated by Lavender?"  
  
"I have nothing to hide," she says pointedly.  
  
I sigh.  
  
"Suit yourself."  
  
For a brief moment, I think I see her hesitate but then she sets her jaw determinedly and opens the door to leave.  
  
"I'll see you later," I tell her and she slams the door behind her.  
  
By the time I get to Lavender's, the party is in full swing and she greets from across the room and hollers at me to throw my jacket in her room.  
  
I do so and wander back into the kitchen, trying to be inconspicuous as I search for Hermione in the crowd.  
  
She's in the living room, talking to some guy I don't know and suddenly, a hot flash of jealousy courses through my body. I shake my head, knowing that I have no right to be jealous after what I've done.  
  
I stand apart from everybody for a few minutes before Lavender breaks free of the crowd she was with and comes over to me.  I suddenly get cold feet and look around desperatel for a place to hide.  I know Lavender will squeeze it out of me, and it's only a matter of time until she tells Ron and he puts me in a coma.  Why did I come here again?  
  
"Do you want a drink?" she offers.  
  
"No, thanks."  
  
"Are you being anti-social this evening?" she teases, taking note of my solitude.  
  
I shrug in reply and she follows my gaze to Hermione.  
  
"What's going on?" she asks and I shrug again.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Liar."  
  
"I'm not lying."  
  
"Harry, you are so full of shit. You two have been like glue since day one and now you're in one room and she's in the other?"  
  
"We're branching out," I joke feebly.  
  
"What, did you screw around on her?" she guesses jokingly.  
  
When I don't say anything, her eyes widen in shock and she punches me. Not playfully in any sense of the word.  The girl is strong.  
  
"You bastard!" she hisses.  
  
I feel my face getting hot, full of shame.  
  
"I'm not proud of myself, Lavender."  
  
She grabs my arm painfully and forces me to follow her out of the room. She leads me into her bedroom and shuts the door behind us.  
  
"I can't believe you, Harry!"  
  
"Yeah, well, I can't believe me either."  
  
"What is wrong with you?" She's glaring at me now and jabs her pointy finger into my chest several times.  This must be what its like to get shot.  
  
"I know, Lavender. Look, I don't need this from you."  
  
"You need it from somebody."  
  
Jab.  
  
"It's between Hermione and I."  
  
"She's my friend."  
  
Jab.  
  
"She's mine too."  
  
"Not anymore, I bet."  
  
Jab, jab, jab.  
  
"Damn it, Lavender!" I cry. "Will you stop?"  
  
"Does it hurt, Harry?"  
  
It's the second time I've been asked that question in the last twenty-four hours.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"A lot?"  
  
I nod.   
  
She stops stabbing me with her finger.  
  
"Merlin, Harry. She told me you told her you love her."  
  
"I do."  
  
"You have a funny way of showing it."  
  
"I didn't have sex with her."  
  
Lavender stares at me.  
  
"I thought you said you screwed around on her."  
  
"I did."  
  
"But…"  
  
"I… I almost did. But then, I didn't."  
  
"Why'd you stop?" she asks.  
  
"Her mom came home," I admit sheepishly.  
  
"So… had her mom not interrupted, you would've fucked her?"  
  
"Lavender, you're so crass."  
  
She rolls her eyes at me. "What, were you making looove to this hoochie?"  
  
I glare at her. "No!"  
  
"Then my choice of vocabulary wasn't wrong, was it?"  
  
It's semantics and we both know it.  
  
"Have you told Hermione that you didn't go all the way with… what's her name?"  
  
"Stephanie."  
  
"Did you tell Hermione?"  
  
I shake my head. "She won't listen to a word I say."  
  
Lavender sits on the edge of her bed.  
  
"How'd she find out?" she wants to know.  
  
"I told her."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"Wow."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're dumb."  
  
"What, am I supposed to lie to her forever? It was eating away at me, Lavender!"  
  
"Oh, well… then by all means, make her feel as awful as you do. Caring is sharing," she rolls her eyes at me again.  
  
"I don't want our relationship to be based on lies."  
  
"Well, you accomplished that, now that you don't have a relationship to speak of."  
  
"Okay, you know what, Lavender? I don't need this."  
  
She grabs my arm, forcing me to stay put.  
  
"So, what'd you do? Come home and announce it to her over dinner?"  
  
I'm quiet again.  
  
"Did you leave her a note?" she teases.

  
"I'd rather not discuss details with you" I say. "It's between me and her."  
  
"Fine," she shrugs, "I'll just ask her."  
  
She turns to do just that.  
  
"I made love to her."  
  
She's confused.  
  
"I thought you just said…"  
  
"Not her! Hermione!"  
  
Follow the bouncing ball, Lavender.  
  
"Recently?" her eyes are wide again.  
  
"Before I told her," I nod glumly.  
  
"And then you told her?!" she shrieks.  "You did it FIRST and you told her AFTER!?!?"  
  
"Yeah," I whisper.  
  
"Wow.  You huge bloody idiot.  Dumb bastard."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Hermione loves you," she says after a minute. "Even still, I'd bet."  
  
I look up at her.  
  
"You think?"  
  
"Yeah," she nods. "So she wouldn't…no she's a good person…"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I don't." She shakes her head.  "And I'm not as good a person as she is…"  
  
"You don't what?  What are you talking about?"  
  
"I don't have that problem, Harry. I don't love you.  So I'm allowed to do this."    
  
I look at her confused.  Then she slaps me so hard across the face that I feel as if it were hit by a rogue bludger.  She throws my jacket at me.  
  
"Go home. Let her start this year in peace."  
  
She flounces out of her room without another look back.


	23. Bending

A/N: Several of you said Chapter 22 wasn't showing up, so I reuploaded it.  I hope that worked.  I also sent the chapter to those of you who left emails in your reviews or have your emails in your profile.  I have no clue why it doesn't work, it works perfectly fine for me and some of you.  Anyway, I'm sorry and if you still can't see it, then just tell me and I'll send it to you ia email.

The party is filled with guests I've never met before. It's really easy to strike up a conversation with at least a dozen of them. We're not discussing debt relief in Wizarding London or anything like that, but it's a fun bunch of happy go lucky people who make me temporarily put him out of my mind.  
  
I don't even notice he's gone until I go to use the bathroom upstairs and then see him emerging out of Lavender's bedroom. The "angry woman scorned" part of me wants to say something about how it's becoming a habit seeing him come out of other women's bedrooms, except he's holding his jacket in his left hand and his right is plastered to his cheek.  
  
"What happened to you?"  
  
"Nothing. I'm going to go home."  
  
"Why?"  
  
It's the first time in a couple of days that I've looked him in the eye, and it takes him by surprise, forcing an admission.  
  
"She slapped me." He shrugs his shoulders.  
  
"Lavender?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why did you tell her?" I shake my head at him.  
  
"She cornered me, I couldn't take it anymore. It was worse than Cruciatus."  
  
"She's just protective of me and has a shorter temper." Why am I essentially apologizing on her behalf?  Anyway, I could only hope Ron doesn't take it this bad.  I'm very angry, but I don't want Harry to be murdered.  
  
"I'm glad. She's a good friend to you."  
  
I nod. He used to be a good friend to me. The best, even. I know he's thinking that too.  
  
"Okay then." It's not a sentence, but I don't know what else to say to him.  
  
He offers me a tight smile and takes a few steps past me, then turns around, and looks at his watch.  
  
"So, Happy New Year."

"You too."

  
"I uh, have something for you at home. Christmas present.  I got it before...you should still have it."  
  
I just stare at him and the tears sting insistently.  
  
"Well, I can give it to you tomorrow or whenever."  
  
A couple of tears spill over and I challenge myself to look up at him. "Can you please go now?"  
  
"Hermione, I didn't mean to make you cry. Damn, I am such a shit." He takes a couple of steps towards me and I immediately hold up my hand. I can't have him touch me. I don't need the reminder and I can't allow myself to revel in the comfort, because 5 minutes later, I'll remember why I'm crying in the first place and nothing will have changed.  
  
"Can you tell me what to do?" He begs. "Anything, I don't care what it is, I have no shame, I'll do it."  
  
I don't know what he's asking me.  
  
"I know I deserve the silent treatment," he goes on, "hell, even my own mother ripped me a new one over this."  
  
"She knows?" I'm so embarrassed now. I feel like a loser.  
  
"She thinks I'm an idiot."  
  
"I didn't think she liked the idea of us."  
  
"It wasn't you, Hermione."  
  
"It doesn't matter anymore."  
  
"I don't want you to stand there, crying. What can I do? There has to be something."  
  
"Just go." I whisper.

*

  
  
It's not how I imagined spending New Years.  
  
 When I get back to the house, I hole myself up in my bedroom and sit there in the dark, waiting for the new year.  
  
It can't be any worse than the old year, can it?  
  
The neighbourhood is quiet and I can't stand the silence. I don't hear it; I hear all the things I said, all the things I shouldn't have said and all the things I wanted to.  
  
It's a couple minutes to midnight and I close my eyes and wait for it to pass.

. . . .

  
  
  
Sometime around three, I hear her downstairs.  
  
I know she will hate another confrontation but that doesn't stop me from getting to my feet and standing out in the hallway at the top of the stairs.  
  
She sees me and sighs.  
  
"It's late, Harry."  
  
"Happy New Year."  
  
"You said that already."  
  
I hold out my hands to her and she sees the gift I'm holding.  
  
"Don't."  
  
"I want you to have it."  
  
"I'd rather not."  
  
"Please."  
  
She looks up at me.  
  
"Lavender offered to let me move in with her."  
  
I close my eyes.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I need you to stop this, Harry" she whispers. "I need you to stop."  
  


"What am I doing?" I ask, truly bewildered. "I just want you to stop hating me."  
  
"I don't hate you."  
  
"Yes you do."  
  
"No." She shakes her head. "If I hated you, this would be so much easier."  
  
She brings her hands up to her eyes and wipes angrily at her tears.  
  
"I hate me," I offer. "I really do." My voice breaks and I push the gift into her hands.  
  
I stumble back towards my room and collapse on the bed.

. . . .

  
  
  
In the morning, she's gone.  
  
There's no note on the fridge and my heart jumps into my throat. I run up the stairs and throw the door to her room open.  
  
Her things are still here.  
  
Relieved, I slump against the door. Her footsteps startle me.  
  
"I thought you were gone." I stare at her.  
  
"I left," she says wearily. "I threw some things in a bag and I got halfway down the front walk."  
  
"You're back?" I whisper, afraid.  
  
She nods. "I … you need to return this." She holds her gift towards me.  
  
"You didn't open it," I say forlornly, my voice thick with emotion.  
  
She closes her eyes.   
  
"It doesn't matter what it is, Harry."  
  
"I got it for you," I whisper. "It's… I can't take it back."  
  
"Then give it to… someone else."  
  
"There's no one else."  
  
She looks away.  
  
"Hermione, there's no one else."  
  
"Did you tell her she was no one?" she asks. It's the first time she's asked anything other than her name.  
  
"She knew, Hermione."  
  
"She's smarter than I was."  
  
"No." My voice is anguished.  
  
She sniffles.  
  
"No, you're right," she tells me. "I knew. I knew, Harry! And I let you convince me that I was wrong."  
  
"Did it feel wrong, Hermione?"  
  
Obviously, it is the wrong question to ask because she glares at me.  
  
"You tell me, now that you have something to compare it with."  
  
"It …" I shake my head. "It doesn't matter that I didn't sleep with her, does it?"  
  
She laughs bitterly.  
  
"No."  
  
"I stopped."  
  
"Because her mother walked in! So you lied to me, again!"  
  
"Lavender told you."  
  
"Yeah. See, you can say a lot of things about Lavender, but she's never lied to me."  
  
"You don't believe me, that I didn't sleep with Stephanie?"  
  
She's still holding the box out towards me and I ignore it.  
  
"It doesn't matter," she shakes her head.  
  
"Do you believe me?" I ask again. "Do you believe that I didn't have sex with her?"  
  
She closes her eyes.  
  
"I want to."  
  
"You do."  
  
Her eyes open and she looks directly into mine.   
  
"I believe you. But it doesn't matter. I don't trust you."  
  
"But you love me."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes, you do. I can see it, Hermione."  
  
"I want to hate you," she cries. "I need to."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Just take it." She thrusts the box towards me.  
  
I shake my head, "It's yours."  
  
"Bloody hell, Harry."  
  
"Just open it. If you don't want it, I'll take it back."  
  
She shakes her head but sees that I'm not going to relent. She tears at the wrap and lifts the lid on the box.  
  
"It's a charm bracelet," I say stupidly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
I point at it, my hands shaking.  
  
"See, the quill? I got that one the day you had the idea to quit St. Mungo's and start your magazine. I was going to give it to you then.  And there's a puppy.  Like Bumpy.  And a snitch…and…"  
  
She touches the metal and looks up at me, her eyes filled with tears.  
  
"A heart."  
  
"Yeah. Corny, huh?" I laugh self-deprecatingly.  
  
"You had it engraved," she whispers, her voice catching.  
  
I nod.  
  
"Harry..."  
  
"Please take it."  
  
She shakes her head.  
  
"I can't."  
  
She steps forward and puts it in my hand. We make contact briefly and the bracelet falls to the floor when she pulls her hand away and runs from the room.

*

  
  
When Lavender offered me a place to stay, I thought it was a no brainer. He wasn't there and she's not the sort of person who would let me wallow and feel sorry for myself. Besides, she lives life one second at a time, unconcerned with the past and not too worried about the future.  
  
I thought it was exactly what I needed.  
  
So I went to bed, slept a little, then got up early enough to throw some stuff together. A couple of shirts and jeans, enough clothes to last me a few days, and then I thought I'd have time to come and pick up the rest of my things.  
  
I also knew I'd never live with her permanently. Had I really meant it, I'd have packed the things that are important to me. Had I really planned on moving out, I'd have left that gift box on the dining room table, and severed all ties.  
  
But I didn't. I took it with me because I knew for sure I'd be coming back, I just didn't think it would be this soon.  
  
After our little confrontation, I walk outside and apparate straight to Lavender's place.    
  
"Hi."

"Hermione?  It's bloody early!  You staying now?" she rubs her eyes.

"No, I think I'll stay at home."  I could barely believe the words myself.

"What?! Why?"

"Because it's my house too." I say lamely.

"So?  Don't tell me you've already forgiven the bastard."

"No, I haven't let him smooth talk me. I'd have come back in a couple of days, and anyways, why should I be the one to move?."

She is still staring at me in shock.

"And I like my house."

"So kick him out!"

"It's his house too, Lav."

"Herm – "

"Lavender, I have to go.  Just trust me on this.  I'll talk to you later, and thank you so much for being my friend."  

She sighs.  "Okay, but my door is always open."

"Oh, every guy in London knows that."

She knows I'm teasing and she sticks out her tongue.  I laugh and return to my house in a slightly better mood.  
  
He stays upstairs the rest of the morning, and when he comes downstairs to have lunch, he's surprised to see me there.  
  
"You're staying?" I detect a definite hint of hope in his voice.  
  
I nod.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"I'm not doing it for you. It's my house too."  
  
He walks over and takes a seat on his breakfast stool. "My mom sent us a letter, Happy New Year and all that."  
  
"She's talking to you again?"  
  
"She wants me to make things right again."  
  
"Well, so long as you've got incentive."  
  
"I'm not doing it for her." He steals my earlier phrase.  
  
"Then for who? Us?" I say that mockingly.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"There is no us, Harry."  
  
"There is. I just forgot that for a minute."  
  
I get up and walk over to the window. I see Melissa and her boyfriend, looking very happy.  
  
"Why did you do it?"  
  
"I don't know. It's like the same thing was beat into my head while I was home. No, you can't, don't, shouldn't, won't work, can't work. And you weren't there so I could see how wrong they were."  
  
"I can't be there keeping watch over you. I can't be wondering every time you go somewhere whether you'll remember me. It's not fair."  
  
"You don't have to."  
  
"But apparently I do."  
  
"No, you don't. I learned my lesson, I learned," he gets up and stands behind me, "that you're it for me."  
  
"So what, you needed to get it out of your system? One last foray into wild and uncharted territory?"  
  
"It was a mistake. It won't happen again. Things aren't done between us."  
  
I turn around to face him.  
  
"You don't get to make that decision."  
  
"You've already made it, Hermione."  
  
He walks over to the hallway closet and pulls out the mop. "I'm going to clean up the place. Then I'm going to go out and get groceries for the week, and to pick you up dinner and dessert or something because it's still New Year even if you think I'm an asshole."  
  
I'm left alone and I suddenly realize I still don't have Crookshanks and Bumpy.  I don't want to be a bother twice in the same day, so I leave the house and make sure to buy a pumpkin pie to give to Lavender as a thank you present.  I considered the package of booze, but I like Lavender, and I want her to be alive a bit longer.  Then I apparated.

"Son of a – quit scaring me like that!"  She''s already dressed and the place is relatively tidy.  It looks as if she had just had company.

"Sorry.  I came for Bumpy and Crookshanks."  I offer her my pie.  
  
"Why are you letting him do this?" Is the next thing she asks me, as she automatically puts the pie on the table and jabs at it with a fork.  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Pull you back in. It's giving him a free ticket to walk all over you if he pleases."  
  
"I'm not letting him back in."  
  
"Are you sure?" she's biting her bottom lip.

"It's ok, I can handle it."

Bumpy skitters clumsily along the tiles and attempts to climb up my legs.  Crookshanks saunters in nonchalantly and acknowledges me with a purr.  He looks a bit annoyed, probably at having to put up with a clumsy little dog and Lavender for so long.  

"I'm sorry, Crookshanks.  I hope Lavender hasn't corrupted you two."

"Oh yeah.  Crookshanks is the definition of 'party animal'." Lavender rolls her eyes.  Then she poked Bumpy in the nose.  "That little one kept falling in my toilet.  I had to keep fishing him out before he drowned."

I laugh and gather up my pets.  I tell Lavender I'll see her later.

"Wait!" she calls out suddenly.

"What?"

"I, um…I told Ron."  She confesses.

"WHAT!?"

"I think he might be over at your place by now.  I think he's pretty mad.  He stormed out of here."

"WHAT!?"

"Hermione, he wanted to know how you two were getting along and I couldn't lie – "

"Oh, Merlin…" I apparated so fast I almost splinched myself and my pets.

* * *

For the millionth time I curse myself for not being able to perform cleaning charms.  The damn mop just smears around everything.  I went into the hall closet to find something else to clean with when I hear the fireplace crackle.  

"Hermione?"

She wasn't home.  I head curiously towards the living room.

"Ron!" I greet him warmly.  He is climbing out of our fireplace slowly, taking care to dust himself off.  "I thought you wouldn't be back a couple days – "

But when he looks up, I know a nice "Happy New Year" is the last thing he wants from me.  He looks furious.

"Son of a bitch."

He knows.

"Ron – "

He darts toward me and he's so angry that it seems like I have a stampede of bulls rushing towards me.  Ron's fist clutches my shirt.

"You son of a bitch." He repeats in a dangerously calm tone.  "I told you.  I told her.  I said I would pummel you into oblivion, and I wasn't kidding.  Look."  

He pulled his wand out of his pocket and placed it on the side table.  "I don't need magic to hurt scum like you."

"Ron, listen to me, I've apologized over and over.  I'm so sorry, and I'm trying to make things right.  I wasn't thinking – "

"Bloody right, you weren't thinking!"

"I'm trying to make it right, Ron, I'm going to make it better!"

"It doesn't matter.  You hurt her.  No, that was beyond hurt.  You just proved everyone right."

"What?"

"She knew, you idiot!  She knew that the world wasn't going to like her with you.  She knew that everyone, even our mom, won't like you two together.  She KNEW because she's the smartest witch on the planet, but she threw that aside because she was in love with you."  His voice increased in volume with every word.

"Ron – "

"She knew that dumbass people considered she wasn't good enough."

"No." I whisper.

"Yes, Harry.  And when you screwed around on her like that, you proved them right."  Ron is yelling now.  His hair looks more like a raginf wildfire than ever before.  His eyes also seem to be blazing.

"I didn't want to.  I was wrong.  They're all wrong."

"It doesn't matter Harry, the stab wound is still there."

"You don't think I know that?  You don't think I know I may have fucked up the best thing in my entire life?" I finally explode. "Ron, I know!  I'm not some playboy who just screws with the next girl who bats their eyes 'just 'cause I can'.  I'm in love!"

"I should have stopped this at the beginning.  I can't believe I was happy for you.  I know the old you, Harry, and sometimes it's hard to stop habits."

"Ron, I wasn't you."

BAM!  His fist connects with my face and I know my nose was broken.  My head snaps back and I fall to the floor.  Ron grabs my collar and leans in close.  

"I never cheated on ANYONE, you bastard.  Don't you dare put you and me in the same sentence."

I stare up at him defiantly.  "One mistake doesn't mean I don't love her."

"It was one hell of a mistake."

The blood is starting to run down into my mouth and I wipe it away.

"I'm going to make it better.  I'm sorry, it's tearing me up inside, and she knows it."

"I don't want you to try, Harry.  You don't deserve Hermione." 

I stay quiet, fighting the tears.

Then front door bursts open and Hermione rushes in holding Crookchanks and Bumpy.  She looks at the scene before her and drops the two pets, who scurry into the kitchen as if they know a storm is brewing.

***

"Oh, Merlin.  Harry!  Ron!" I run over and lean down to Harry's bleeding face.  "Ron, you broke Harry's nose!"

"He hurt you, Hermione, and he doesn't deserve you."

"Ron Weasley, please go home."

"Hermione – "

"Go home, Ron!  I'll talk to you later!"  Harry is awake and looking at us, but he won't say anything.  I take the throw on the sofa and use it to stop the bleeding on Harry's face.  I touch it gingerly and he winces, without making eye contact.

"Hermione, I want you to move in with me.  Or Lavender."

"Ron, I love you and you know that.  Thank you for caring, but you shouldn't have hit Harry!"

"Why not?  Just come on, let's go."  He made a move to grab at my arm, but I pulled it away.

"I'm not going anywhere." I hiss.  

Ron looked offended.  "We're only looking out for you, Hermione."

"He's your best friend, Ron.  Don't talk about him like he's some Azkaban inmate."

"But – "

"Ron, please, can you just go over to Lavender's and mind your business for a bit." I say exasperatedly.

"Do you still love him?"  
  


There is a heavy silence.  Harry finally decides to look up into my eyes and Ron seems to bore holes into my head with his stare.  I still need to figure out if I am 100% sure I want to throw this relationship out like yesterday's garbage.  He admitted to fooling around, I reason. He told me. He didn't have to and I probably never would have found out. But he told me. He took a risk and still he told me. Ripped my heart out in the process, but he told me.  
  
I'm already down to 99%.  Ron is watching my expression closely, and I know I can't hide anything from him.  He sighs and rubs his forehead as if he just developed a headache.

"Ron, just go."

He snatched up his wand from a table.  "Fine.  I'm staying at Lavender's for a while, you know where to find me."

I sense a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Are you mad at me?" I call before he goes.

Ron turns around.  "No."  Then he leaves.

I realize he was facing both of us, and I wasn't sure of whom he was talking to.

*

  
  
I convinced her once, I can do it again.  
  
These are my thoughts as I walk around buying food after Hermione silently healed my nose.  Without a word she had my nose back to normal and went straight to her room without looking back.  Now I'm walking around shopping for dinner, for food that she likes.  I know about her tastes because I love her.  
  
The stakes are higher this time. I know that now, too. The last time, with that list, I was trying to prove a point. Yes, I had feelings for her and looking back, I know that those feelings were this. I know now that I loved her all along.  
  
This time, I want her back, not because I screwed up and I need to redeem myself. It's not about fixing some tarnished image. I want to fix this because I hurt her and I don't want to do that anymore.  
  
I spend the afternoon doing all the things I said I would. When she comes downstairs late in the afternoon, I'm in the kitchen finishing up with dinner and she shakes her head as she fills a glass with water.  
  
"You're cooking?" she asks.  
  
"I told you I was going to supply dinner."  
  
"You didn't tell me you were going to try to kill me."  
  
I hold my breath, afraid to participate in anything that remotely resembles banter.  
  
"I could put some mint in mine if you'd like," I tell her and she laughs despite herself.  
  
I can almost see the change in her as she remembers herself.  
  
"I'm actually not very hungry," she mumbles. "I'm just going to go upstairs and read."  
  
"You have to have some desert at least," I try.  
  
"It wasn't a very happy new year."  
  
"I know. But you should still have some food."  
  
I don't apologize. She knows.  
  
"Are you going to make me eat dinner first?"  
  
I shake my head. "I can't make you do anything, Hermione."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
It's awkward, but at least it's approaching civility.  
  
I take the cake out of the fridge and she smiles.  
  
"Chocolate."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Looks good."  
  
"It isn't for me."  
  
She stares.  "So why – "

"It's for you. I know you like it so…"

"You're not going to eat any?"  
  
I shake my head. "No, it's okay."  
  
"I can't eat an entire cake myself," she reasons.  
  
"Have Lavender or Ron over or something."  
  
"After they each hit you?"  
  
"I deserved it."  
  
She doesn't disagree with me, but gives me an odd look.  
  
"You don't have to do this," she says after a minute.  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
She sighs, "Harry, you can't just buy me a cake and cook me dinner and mop the floor and we're okay."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Then why are you doing it?"  
  
It's my turn to sigh.  
  
"Hermione, you're talking to me."  
  
She looks away from me.  
  
"That's more than I had yesterday."  
  
"Harry…"

  
"I proved to you once that I was worthy of you."  
  
"That was different."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"It's not about proving that we should be together this time, Harry."  
  
I nod soberly.  
  
"I know. This time it's about proving that we shouldn't be apart."  
  
She closes her eyes.  
  
"I can't do this."  
  
"I made a mistake, Hermione. I hate myself for it. But I can't say that I'd change anything."  
  
She stares at me.  
  
"I didn't deserve your love before. I didn't know what I had. I took you for granted."  
  
"Yes, you did."  
  
"I took us for granted. So I didn't deserve it. I know how much it means now, Hermione. I know that because of what happened. And maybe that means that you'll hate me forever, but it also means that I know now that I'll love you for just as long."  
  
I'm quiet now, waiting for her to tell me that it's pointless, waiting for her to tell me that it doesn't matter if I love her; she doesn't love me and all this has made her realize is that she never did.  
  
"Harry…"  
  
I wait.  Here it comes…  
  
"I'd rather have something other than chocolate."


	24. Another List

A/N: Wow, I'm really sorry I haven't update in…um…a really long time.  I've just had a lot of things to do recently and to be honest this story was not very high on my priority list.  But I'm back for now.  I hope I haven't lost any readers.  I also hope I haven't lost track of my story…I hope I can still carry this out…

I stare at her in shock.  She notices my bewildered expression but does not continue.  With a hint of a smile she turns from me and makes herself comfortable at the table.  The rest of the night carries on in silence.

***

I take refuge in the endless promotional stuff I'm asked to do prior to the first issue of the year being circulated. Interviews with print journalists and other people fill up my days when I'm not in the office looking over amateur editorials.  
  
When you're busy, you don't have too much time to obsess about your current state of existence, and it suits me just fine.  
  
Harry is also busy, as the post-holiday season starts up, along with the Quidditch frenzy.  The two of us have reached a sort of unspoken understanding. We talk to each other over dinner, if we're both home and have time to eat together. If not, it's no big loss. I don't chase him around, trying to wrestle for five minutes of attention, and he doesn't chase me around either.  
  
It's a peculiar balance, because we're not really getting to a better place, or a worse one. We're stagnating somewhere just short of friendship, which would upset me were it not for the fact that two weeks ago, I didn't imagine I'd ever want to see his face again.  We're not quite friends yet, but we're not indifferent either.  
  
Soon I have to visit Italy to meet with sister publications.  Meaning I would be going to boring 4-hour long meetings everyday for the next several days.  
  
Of course, that leaves him alone here without me and it's hard not to see parallels.  
  
"I have to go to Italy for a week." I tell him as I'm putting away some dishes.  
  
"Yeah.  It's not so bad."  
  
I nod and shut the cupboard.

"Come on, say it." He insists.  
  
"What?"  
  
"That you're worried about leaving me here. That even though we're, well, I don't know what we are, you're worried it'll all disappear the moment you step out of my line of sight."  
  
I sigh and turn to fill Bumpy and Crookshanks' food and water bowls.  "Tell me I'm wrong, Harry."  
  
"You're wrong."  
  
I shake my head, and give Crookshanks a good petting.  Then I pick up Bumpy and proceed to rub his belly.  Crookshanks meowls, protesting my extra attention to Bumpy.  
  
"Would it make you feel better if I came along?"  
  
"I'm not your babysitter. So, in a word: no."  
  
He walks quickly and stands in front of me.  
  
"What do you think, that the minute you leave, I'm going to have random women stopping by?"  
  
I cringe at the thought.  
  
"No, I don't think you're just waiting for me to get out of the house."  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"But, it's a consequence of what happened, that I should wonder now."  
  
"It is."  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"I don't know what I can tell you other than I have no intention of making another mistake like that one."  
  
I nod at him.  
  
"Hermione, do I have a second chance? I mean, have you given it to me?"  
  
"I...in a way, yeah." My mouth speaks on its own.  I don't know what this second chance consists of, but I'm guessing at some point I'll find out.  
  
"Then why would I be stupid enough to put myself into a position where I'd have to beg for a third or a fourth chance?"  
  
"You'd never get them, Harry." I look him in the eye and he knows I'm absolutely serious.  
  
"I know."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Yes, without question, I know."   
  
"I mean it. You don't get to screw up again." Or screw around.  
  
He steps closer and kisses my forehead quickly. I feel a mixture of need and fear coursing through my veins and I think he senses it because he steps back just as quickly and grants me back my personal space.  We stand there awkwardly for a few more seconds before I walk away.  
  


***

  
  
I think we both know that we'll look back on this trip as a test. It won't fix everything but if I can show her that I'm not going to hit the sheets with the first blonde who looks my way while Hermione is out of town, maybe it will be a start.  
  
 She leaves with a neutral "Good-bye, I'll be back in a week."  When I'm alone in the house, I don't want to be there. It's too quiet and empty and I don't want to be left alone with my thoughts.  Even Bumpy's crashing noises and Crookshanks' annoyed meows can't fill the void.  
  
I need to talk to someone, and I'm not sure if Ron has cooled off yet.  I know he's been writing to Hermione, but I don't think it's safe yet to confront him.  Also, he made it clear that he never did what I did, so it wouldn't be helpful to talk about it with him.

Though I'm hardly in Lavender's good books, I find myself on her doorstep and when she opens the door and then starts to close it in my face, I stick my foot in the space and quickly blurt out what I came to say.  
  
"I need you to not hate me."  
  
She glares at me.  
  
"It's not me that you should be worrying about."  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"You're not selling yourself very well here, Harry."  
  
"I'm not worrying about you, it's Hermione. I'm thinking about Hermione. You're her closest friend out here besides Ron and maybe if I can make you understand…"  
  
"I'll plead your case?" She snorts. "Try someone who hasn't heard this story a million times."  
  
"Haven't you ever cheated?" I ask urgently.  
  
"Leave." She starts to close the door.  
  
"Ow! Lavender, my foot!"  
  
"I'm giving you two seconds to get it out of my way or I'll curse it off if I have to."  She pulls her wand threateningly.  
  
"Please, I don't know what else to do."  
  
"So not only am I a last resort, but you come to my house and insult me and then you expect me to help you worm your lying, cheating bastard self back into my friend's life?"  
  
I sigh.  
  
"Look, I just want her to understand."  
  
She shakes her head. "Harry, don't you get it? There is nothing that you can say that will convince Hermione that what you did was okay."  
  
"I know it's not okay!"  
  
I take a deep breath to calm myself. "I know it's not okay. I know what I did was horrible and there is no reason in the world that would make it anything else."  
  
"Then what do you want from me, exactly?"  
  
"I don't expect you to plead my case, Lavender. Just… maybe just don't make it worse."  
  
She laughs sarcastically, "I didn't do this, Harry."  
  
"I know."  
  
"What makes you think I have so much influence with Hermione?  Why not talk to Ron." A smirk starts to form at this.

  
"I know she talks to you."  
  
"Oh no," she shakes her head, "I'm not being your go-between."  
  
"That's not what I'm asking you!" I say, exasperated. "I just want you to not badmouth me."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah, " she shrugs.  
  
"I didn't think you'd be this easy," I tell her.  
  
She gives me a look. "Harry, I don't need to run you down to Hermione. You've done a fine enough job of that yourself."  
  
"I'm going to win her back."  
  
She rolls her eyes. "You just keep telling yourself that."  
  


. . . .

  
  
I spend the time that Hermone is away coming up with a list of my own. There's no doubt in my mind that she'll shoot it down, but I want her to know that I'll do whatever it takes to win her back.  
  
I don't expect her home until Sunday evening so when I arrive home after a long day with my manager and come face to face with her in the hall, I'm shocked.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Hi." She nods and goes to move past me into the living room.  
  
"You're home."  
  
"I'm back." It's as though she's taking care to not use the word "home," I notice. I don't say anything about it though, instead giving her a genuine smile.  
  
"How was your trip?"  
  
"Busy."  
  
"That's good."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Did they have you doing a lot of stuff?"  
  
"That's what the trip was for." She shakes her head. "Harry, I'm not really in the mood to make small talk."  
  
"Me either."  
  
"Okay. I'm going to bed."  
  
"Hermione?"  
  
She turns back to me and raises her eyebrow in a silent question.  
  
"I'm glad you're home."  
  
"Goodnight, Harry."  
  


. . . .

  
  
"Do you want the front page?" I ask at breakfast the next morning.  
  
"Are you done with it?"  
  
I shrug, "I'll read it later."  
  
She sighs, "Don't do this, Harry."  
  


"Do what?"  
  
"Go out of your way. It's not what I want."  
  
"What do you want, Hermione?"  
  
"I want you to stop this."  
  
"What?"  
  
She rolls her eyes. "I know you talked to Lavender."  
  
I bite my tongue for a moment.  
  
"Yeah, I did."  
  
"You asked her to not badmouth you?"  
  
"So?"  
  
"So, what Lavender thinks has nothing to do with why we're not together. Don't put her in the middle, Harry."  
  
"She's already there."  
  
She shakes her head. "What is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"You talk to her, don't you?"  
  
"She's my friend.  Ron is a guy and I couldn't talk to you, could I?" She laughs bitterly, "Do you understand now why I didn't want to get involved with you? It isn't just our relationship that we've lost, it's our friendship too. I can't talk to you! You're the problem."  
  
I contemplate my cereal for a moment.  
  
"I made a list."  
  
"Oh, Merlin." she groans. "I don't want to hear it."  
  
"Please? I know you don't owe me anything and I have no right to ask you, but please, Hermione?"  
  
She sighs deeply. "Fine."  
  
"It's just… reasons why you should forgive me."  
  
"There's nothing…"  
  
"Shhhh. Please?"  
  
"Go ahead."  
  
"You taught me about friendship."  
  
"No…"  
  
"Yes, Hermione. You did. You taught me that it's the most important part of what we have. I miss that. So maybe you are right. Maybe I ruined that. And you know what? I'm the most sorry about that."  
  
She nods and looks away.  
  
"You taught me about beauty."  
  
"Please, don't…" she whispers.  
  
"Not physical beauty, Hermione." I shake my head. "Although you are the most beautiful woman I know. You taught me about how beautiful this world can be. When we were together, what we had, it made me stop seeing all the bad things."  
  
"Not enough though, huh?"  
  
I continue.  
  
"You taught me to never give up on what we have."  
  
She returns her gaze to me.  
  
"That list, Hermione… you know, I pulled it out the other night and I read it again. And I thought, if it were anyone else, I wouldn't have kept trying to prove you wrong. But it wasn't anyone else; it was you. And I couldn't give up on you because if I gave up on you, I'd be giving up on me too."  
  
She sighs.  
  
"Harry, it doesn't matter. Stop. Stop reading."  
  
I my throat seizing up but it doesn't matter.  
  
"You taught me about loving someone, Hermione."  
  
"What you did to us, that wasn't love."  
  
"No, you're right. It was selfish and cowardly and stupid. I didn't know how to get anyone to understand that you're the only woman I want. I wanted them to understand. But it doesn't matter if they don't understand. It only matters that you do."  
  
"Harry, I can't."  
  
"I know. I know, and it's my fault. But you are, Hermione. The only one. If being alone is what proves that to you, then I'll be alone."  
  
She sighs.  
  
"I'm tired, Harry. I'm tired of fighting; I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of all of it."  
  
"Hermione, you've taught me so much and what have I taught you? I've taught you that love is irresponsible and painful and I taught you not to trust it. But maybe there's something else I can teach you. I don't deserve it and I have no right to ask you to let me try, but I have to be the one to teach it."  
  
She closes her eyes and I watch helplessly as tears slide down her cheeks.  
  
Her voice is barely audible, "What?"  
  
"Forgiveness."  
  


***

  
  
"Forgiveness." I repeat, wiping my eyes.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Is that what you think this is about?"  
  
"Isn't it?" He asks, his eyes full of sincerity.  
  
I fix my stare on the back of his cereal box. "When you're friends with somebody, or related to them, or when you...love a person, then you learn to forgive them for things. You do it all the time because you know they're still good people."  
  
"Am I?"  
  
"What, one hell of a swell guy?" I say sarcastically. "You're not a bad guy, Harry. You're one of the good guys, actually. You did something wrong, but you're still decent at the end of the day."  
  
"So..."  
  
"So, if I did forgive you, it's a natural response that would happen at some point anyway. But as much as you say you want my forgiveness, it's not what you really want."  
  
"What do you think I want?"  
  
"For things to be the way they were before." I say confidently. "For us to banter and joke around on the couch. For me to like being with you again, for you to come back to me, to my bed."  
  
He cocks his head to the side. "Well, okay, maybe eventually, but I'd still need for you to forgive me. Not just for me, but for you."  
  
"Harry, if I forgave you this instant, why do you think we'd instantaneously end up back together?"  
  
"If you forgive me, doesn't that mean that we're okay?"  
  
"Yes, but it doesn't mean I would find it in me to subject myself to this all over again."  
  
I stand up and push my chair away from the table so I can wash my bowl.  
  
"We were happy." He insists.  
  
"We were."  
  
"Wouldn't you want that again?"  
  
"You think that you're the only one who could make me happy?" I ask and his face tells me that I burned him with the remark. I feel badly, so I try to clarify. "There are too many variables with us, and I need a lot of fight to keep it going and I don't know that I have it in me."  
  
"Then let me fight for us."  
  
"Your manager wasn't happy, some of your fans were irate, your mother was practically in tears to learn about what you like to do on your spare time, the people back home apparently have a bushel of problems with us. And the idea of me ever going down there and then seeing her, or knowing that you'd inevitably see her again, well that really isn't something I want to live with day to day."  
  
"They can all go fuck themselves." He says crassly. "My manager, my fans, I don't give a damn anymore."  
  
Part of me feels badly for him that he went home for the first time in a long time and everything that could go wrong, did. And then some. I know he didn't go there to cheat on me. Sometimes people just wear you down.  
  
"Will you let me, Hermione?"  
  
Forgiveness.  
  
I can't say no. That would compound our problems. And I don't want to say no. He's being sincere.  
  
"Okay."  
  
"You won't be sorry. I'll make sure of it."  
  
I just nod at him, and he comes up to me, opening up his arms a bit. "May I?"  
  
I nod stupidly at him and he pulls me close into a hug. My face is buried in his neck and as soon as I feel his skin against me, the tears come back, spilling over him.  
  


***

  
  
I hold her close until she stops shaking and then I pull back and run my thumbs along her cheekbones, gathering the tears.  
  
"You know how I said that I wouldn't change anything because I know now that I was taking you for granted?"  
  
She nods.  
  
"I meant that, but if it's something that I could have learned without hurting you, I wouldn't have done that. I'd do anything to take that away."  
  
"You can't" she whispers.  
  
"I know that. But maybe I can start over. Maybe I can avoid doing that again."  
  
She sighs, "I don't know how we start over, Harry. There's too much between us. It's not like I can reintroduce myself to you and you to me and we pretend like the past didn't happen."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Then I'm not sure…"  
  
"We make her the past, Hermione."  
  
"And how do you propose that we do that?"  
  
I take her hand in mine and lead her over to the couch where we sit next to each other and I turn to face her.  
  
"There was this girl I kissed once" I begin. "Her name was Stephanie."  
  
"Harry, don't…"  
  
"She was attractive and nice and I didn't feel like I needed to defend my choices with her. She was "innocent" and stunning so everyone was comfortable with her. It was easy to be around her."  
  
"I can't listen to this."  
  
"It's the only way I know of putting this behind us."  
  
She bites her lip. "I don't want to hear details."  
  
"It wasn't just that my mother approved of her, Hermione. It's that it felt like she understood what it was like, to not always do things that were sanctioned by your relatives."

  
"So you're a rebel, now?"  
  
"In a way, yeah."  
  
"Great. Except you know what, Harry? I don't want to be someone who you're with to prove a point. It makes me feel cheap and used."  
  
"Do you really think that's what I'm doing?"  
  
"If it's easier, and she understands you so much, then why are you back here?"  
  
"Because, Hermione. Stephanie understands what that life is like. But you understand what this life is like, and that's the life that I want now."  
  
"You weren't so sure of that," she argues.  
  
"I know."  
  
"I have one question and I need you to be honest with me."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"If her mom hadn't come home then, would you have slept with her?"  
  
I take my time before answering. I take her hands in mine.  
  
"I don't know" I say finally, my voice cracking.  
  
She looks away.  
  
"You asked me to be honest, Hermione."  
  
She nods, "I know."  
  
"I wish I could tell you that I would have stopped myself. But I don't know that I would have. I don't expect you to understand this, but I just sort of lost myself and I can't say I hated that feeling at the time."  
  
"After…" she takes a deep breath. "When her mom was coming in, did you think about me?"  
  
"Yes," I nod. "And you're all I've thought about since. I thought that I'd never be able to face you again and in a way, I was right. I couldn't. I tried, Hermione. And maybe that's why the other night happened. I wanted to pretend that what happened in The Burrow didn't happen. I wanted to believe that nothing had happened to change us. But it has."  
  
She simply nods.  
  
"I know it was a horrible way to tell you and it probably made everything that much worse, but I couldn't be with you and lie to you. I couldn't have you believing in me when there was nothing to believe in."  
  
She's quiet for a minute.  
  
"You know there's a good chance that I would've never known."  
  
"Yeah, but I did. I couldn't have you living a lie, even if it means that you'll never live with me."  
  
"So this girl you knew… do you remember her well?"  
  
"No, she's just someone I knew once."  
  
"And now?"  
  
"And now I've found you. And myself."  
  
"I liked you before, Harry."  
  
"I'm better now."


End file.
